


Mac and Dennis Get Fake Gay Married

by glundergun (cleardishwashers)



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Gang Behavior, Dennis is a Bastard Man, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Vomiting, climbing the shaft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-10-31 18:10:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 26,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20798756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleardishwashers/pseuds/glundergun
Summary: mac and dennis fake a proposal to get free dinner, but like everything that the gang does, it spirals.my fantastic amazing brilliant showstopping beta (kellycore on ao3, kellycored on tumblr) is the reason why this turned out halfway decent so tysm!!!(original idea credit to macdenniskiss on tumblr (doriangay on ao3)— thank you so much for letting me work with this idea!)the mature rating is there for a reason, but nothing is worse than you'd find in a typical sunny episode. i'll add more tags as i post new chapters :)





	1. Mac and Dennis Fake a Proposal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doriangay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doriangay/gifts), [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).

> thanks for reading!

Dennis rubs his thumb over the red felt of the ring box that sits heavy in his suit jacket, and then he looks up, across the booth. Mac’s hair isn’t gelled back to an intolerable extent, but he’s wearing the same stupid polo-tie combo he wears to everything (with the addition of a nice jacket, which does  _ not _ mitigate the effect of him wearing a fucking  _ polo). _

Dennis can’t bring himself to comment on it.

Mac raises his eyebrows at him. “You okay?” he says.

Dennis nods once— sharp, almost jerky. And then he stands up, and he slides out of the booth, and he kneels on the millimeter-thick carpet of the restaurant. The other patrons gasp as one, and Dennis pretends that the smirk that’s wormed its way onto his face is a genuine smile. He’s prepared his speech, he’s got the ring, he’s  _ ready. _

Except for the fact that he couldn’t think of anything to put in his speech, so now he’s kneeling on the floor of an establishment that’s definitely  _ not _ Guigino’s, with a ring that’s made out of gold-brushed stainless steel, and he doesn’t have a speech.

(This situation is actually Mac’s fault, because his stupid goddamned puppy-dog eyes fucking  _ lit up _ at the prospect of the scheme— which, of course, Dennis  _ had _ to blurt out the first idea he had for it, like a fucking kindergartener— and Dennis couldn’t bring himself to postpone the dinner so that he could write a stupid fucking speech. He’d figured that since he was better at improv than Dee, he’d be fine. Maybe he’d underestimated Dee’s shittiness at improv.)

“Mac,” Dennis starts, the words coming as easily as if he had grabbed a knife and started carving them out of his flesh, “you are the goddamned light of my life.”  _ Not a terrible start. _ “I wake up every day, and I get to see you. I go to work, and I get to see you. I come home, and I get to see you.” Sentences are starting to form with less resistance now, so he continues. “I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you. You keep me grounded, and you’ve calmed me down more times than I can count.” The words are spilling out of his mouth faster than he can think them up, and, with a jolt of icy surprise, he realizes that he’s saying the truth. “I know the past few years have been hard for us, what with my ex and your struggle with coming out and so much other shit, but  _ God, _ I’m so glad that you’ve been there with me, man. I wouldn’t choose anyone else, because you and I— we  _ fit. _ And I thank whatever the hell is up there for that every single day.” There’s a strange taste in his mouth, like iron, and he suddenly realizes that he has to finish the speech. “I love you, Mac. Will you marry me?”

The whole restaurant seems to hold its breath. Dennis cannot  _ believe _ that he’s holding his breath with them.

“Of course, Den,” Mac says, with that familiar easygoing softness present in his voice. As Dennis slides the ring onto Mac’s finger, he’s vaguely aware of the restaurant applauding— instead, he’s focusing on two things. One: Mac’s hands are really fucking soft, and they have no right to be, because Mac  _ wrecks _ his hands on gym machines and Project Badass and God knows what else, and he doesn’t even moisturize. Two: the next logical step in the proposal is the kiss. Dennis has to kiss Mac. It’s very, very logical in theory- that’s how a proposal goes, it’s  _ kneeling, speech, question, kiss— _ but the cold, hard reality is that Dennis’s heart is doing something fucking  _ weird _ and he’s leaning down and all he can think of are Mac’s lips, stretched into the tiniest of half-smiles, and then they’re kissing.

They’re  _ kissing. _

Dennis is kissing Mac. And Mac is kissing him back. And there’s no sparks, but there  _ is _ a warm, tingly feeling emanating from wherever they’re touching, and Dennis is hyperaware of all these places. The lips, obviously. Then Dennis’s hand is in Mac’s hair. His other hand is on Mac’s neck. Mac has a hand in Dennis’s curls. He’s also cupping Dennis’s jaw. The way he’s touching Dennis is driving him crazy— it’s light and restrained, and all he wants is  _ more, _ even though it’s only been three seconds. Which is the agreed-upon length of the kiss.  _ Fuck. _ He dares to run his tongue along Mac’s bottom lip, and the first thing that he notices as soon as he pulls back is that Mac, hair mussed and face flushed, looks at him like he’s holding the secret to understanding the universe.

Belatedly, he realizes that his face has stretched into a smile, and for a second, he lets himself pretend that this is all real.

When a waiter brings over a large bottle of champagne, the illusion is shattered into a thousand glimmering pieces. “Congratulations,” the white-coated man says, pouring two glasses with a near-condescending grin. Dennis ignores it.

“Thanks,” Mac says. He holds up his glass for a toast, his face flushed with the success of a scheme. That, and the evening’s wine. The rosy tint to his cheeks is endearing— always has been, but tonight it all seems different, and Dennis isn’t remotely a fan.

He toasts back and tries to avoid looking at how Mac’s jacket strains around his biceps.

They get a free tiramisu, and before Dennis can register what’s happening, there’s a bit of it at his lips, and then Mac is feeding him a forkful of the most fucking delicious dessert that he’s ever had. He lets out an involuntary moan as his eyes flutter closed.  _ “Goddamn, _ Mac,” he says as Mac withdraws the fork from his mouth. “That’s good.”

When he opens his mouth, Mac looks kind of flushed. Whatever— Dennis isn’t going to clean it up if he drinks too much and pukes. “Really?” Mac replies. “That’s— that’s great. Lemme try.” Of course, Mac has no concept of decency, and he cuts off at  _ least _ a quarter of the tiramisu before stuffing it into his mouth and letting out a moan of his own. Except this one is  _ much _ more obscene, and Dennis can’t help but notice how Mac’s lips close around the fork and the way Mac’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Damn, Den,” Mac says, voice muffled through the cake. “You’re right.”

“When am I  _ not?” _ Dennis replies, trying to lace a bit of irritation into his voice to avoid staring at the tiny fleck of cream left at the corner of Mac’s mouth.

The bait seems to sail right over Mac’s head. “Y’know, we should…” His words fade off into a buzz as Dennis’s field of vision narrows until he’s only staring at Mac’s lips. The fleck is driving him insane, and he has the sudden urge to wipe it off. “Hey. Dennis,” Mac says, the  _ “asshole” _ evident in his tone. “You there?”

_ What the hell? _ says a voice in Dennis’s head— one that seems to be on the verge of slightly unhinged laughter.  _ You’re pretending to be engaged. Might as well! _

This is the exact same voice that gets him into shitloads of trouble all the time, but this is a restaurant that’s not Guigino’s and this is a fake relationship and this is what any loving fiance would do, so  _ what the hell? _

He leans forward and he drags his thumb across Mac’s lips, savoring the touch. “You had something there,” he says. And then before he can think better of it, he sticks his thumb in his mouth and licks the cream off.

Mac looks like a goddamned beetroot, his mouth hanging slightly open, and for a second Dennis thinks that he’s done something that all the years of backbiting and insults and fights couldn’t do. His heart plummets into his stomach, and as a desperate attempt to salvage the conversation, he says, “What were you saying? Was it something about buying a shirt that doesn’t look like a polo a cat pissed on?”

Mac’s mouth snaps closed and his eyes narrow. “I’ll have you know that this is a perfectly fine shirt,  _ babe.” _ The familiarity of Mac’s almost-angry-but-not-quite-there-yet tone loosens something in Dennis’s chest, even if the term of endearment sounds twisted in the context.

Dennis weighs the pros and cons of continuing the argument— it would bring some normalcy back to the situation, give Dennis control again, but they need to sell the act. Thankfully, he’s spared from future deliberation by the arrival of the chef at their table. “Congratulations,” the chef says, smiling benevolently down at them. “I just wanted to tell you— that speech was very powerful.”

“Thanks,” Dennis says. “Where is this going?”

The chef laughs, like something Dennis said was funny. “Well, I wanted to offer to cater the wedding. You two are so obviously in love, and that was one of the sweetest proposal speeches I’ve ever heard. I’d be honored, really.”

Dennis looks at Mac. His brown eyes are wide, tinged with surprise. “We wouldn’t want to impose,” Mac says.

“Oh, it’s really no trouble. That speech of yours— it really resonated with me, you know?” the chef says. Suddenly, everything clicks, and Dennis has the urge to say,  _ I’m not gay! _ because the chef is looking at him like he’s really in love with Mac, and Mac is looking at him like  _ get us out of this mess, _ and Dennis just really wants to make it clear that none of this is real.

“Well, if you’re sure,” Dennis says, his voice suddenly sounding like it’s coming from a far-off place. Maybe it’s from some alternate universe where he  _ is _ in love with Mac, where this is a real proposal, where he has color schemes and tuxes and guest lists all planned out. But no— Mac’s face is clearly set in a  _ what the FUCK _ look, and Dennis is kind of wondering that himself.

“Great! Here, take my card,” the chef says from a mile away, pulling a card out of his breast pocket and laying it on the table. “How long have you two been together?”

“Twenty years,” Dennis hears himself say, at the same time that Mac says “Three years.”

The chef looks very confused.

“We  _ met _ twenty years ago,” Dennis ad-libs, a grin plastered onto his face, “but we’ve been dating for three.”

“Oh,” the chef says. “Well, just gimme a call— and your dinner is on the house.” He smiles, and then he leaves, and then Mac turns his gaze on Dennis.

“What the  _ fuck,” _ Mac hisses, through an unnatural smile. He sounds like he’s underwater.

“What the fuck do you mean,  _ ‘what the fuck,’ _ I just got us a bunch of free food,  _ baby,” _ Dennis hisses back, his voice carrying an almost indiscernible tremor. This whole thing is slowly spiraling— the speech, and the kiss, and the tiramisu and the lip-wiping and the goddamned chef coming in and asking a million invasive questions.

Mac’s pointed stare immediately turns into a concerned one, because of  _ course _ he’d notice. Goddamn Mac. “Dude, you good?”

“Yeah,” Dennis tells him, an edge slowly creeping into his voice. “Why wouldn’t I be? Other than—” He clamps his mouth shut, swallowing the razor-sharp words before they slip out and fuck the evening up even more.

Mac stands up, gulping down the last of his champagne. “I got you, man.”

Dennis stands as well, digging his nails into his palm. The sensation is barely noticeable, and he presses the nails in deeper, balling his hands up tighter in his pockets. Mac slings his arm around Dennis’s shoulder, and he can’t feel the extra weight.

The night air is a dull knife rasping against his lungs as Mac guides him to the Range Rover. “Seriously, Den, you good?” Mac asks, turning so that instead of his arm being around Dennis’s shoulders, his hand is resting in the curve at the bottom of Dennis’s neck. In the moonlight, Mac’s eyes look almost like pools of ink, and his dark lashes cast slight shadows over his cheekbones.

Dennis nods, curling the fingers on his right hand around the car keys in his pocket. The ridges dig into the flesh of his palm, radiating the faintest waves of pain. He lets out a breath. “Gimme a cigarette.” His voice is probably harsher than it needs to be, but he chalks that up to the chill.

Mac fishes a Lucky Strike out and lights it, and then holds it out to Dennis. He takes it with his left hand, briefly entertaining the fantasy of stabbing it into his skin, imagining how good the burn would feel.

He puts it to his mouth instead, and takes a long drag. “Thanks.” The warmth of Mac’s hand is slowly starting to reach him, and he exhales heavily, blowing the smoke away from the two of them. “You have anything else on you?”

Mac pulls out a silvery flask. Dennis reaches for it, but Mac pulls his hand back. “Keys.”

“Seriously?  _ Now _ is the time you’re choosing to worry about drunk driving?” Dennis snaps.

“I’m worried about  _ you, _ dickwad,” Mac replies. “So. Keys.” He shakes the flask.

Dennis waits for a moment, and then he shoves the keys at Mac. The red imprints on his hand are clearly visible, but Mac doesn’t comment. Instead, he hands Dennis the flask, and Dennis takes a grateful gulp.

Apart from Dennis’s mix playing through the stereo (even though it’s Mac’s turn to pick), the drive home is spent in silence— it’s not awkward, but Dennis can tell that Mac is itching to talk, so it’s not exactly comfortable. The walk up to the apartment is the same, and Dennis is starting to think that the quiet will be unbroken through the night when Mac says, “You wanna, like, talk about it?”

Dennis gives him a halfhearted glare that doesn’t cow him in the slightest. “Not really.”

“You sure?” Mac says, stepping towards Dennis. “‘Cause you didn’t seem all that great, man.”

“Look,” Dennis snaps. “It’s just a thing. It happened, I got over it, the end. It doesn’t concern you.”

Mac opens his mouth, and then he closes it, and then his shoulders slump the tiniest bit. “Look, if you want to talk, that’s fine. Wake me up in the middle of the goddamn night if you want, I don’t give a shit, ‘cause it does kinda concern me.”

Dennis has the apology on his tongue, but he’s done enough spontaneous shit tonight. “Whatever. I’m gonna hit the sack.” He turns away before he can see Mac’s reaction, and he heads to the bathroom to brush his teeth.


	2. Dee Has a Girlfriend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dennis finds out that dee has a girlfriend. some other shit goes down too.
> 
> cw for disordered thoughts and dennis being dennis

Dennis wakes up to the sound of the smoke alarm blaring, and he jerks up in bed, the blanket already ripped off his body. Icy terror digs its claws into his heart as memories of smoke and embers swirl in his brain. “Mac?” he calls out, keeping his voice as steady as he can.

“It’s fine! We’re good, dude!” Mac replies. “Just the toaster!”

Dennis sighs, irritation prickling at him as relief washes over him. He can picture it- Mac trying to make toast, Mac doing something stupid like turning the setting to ten because “if you cook it for twenty seconds on ten, it’s the same as cooking it for a hundred seconds on two,” the toaster blowing up, the apartment being engulfed in flames—

He rolls over, stuffing his face into his silk pillowcase, but the light filtering through his curtains stabs into his eyes and prevents him from doing anything other than listen to his heart thud against his ribcage. He decides that it’s a fruitless endeavor, and that’s how he ends up getting dragged into eating an actual breakfast by Mac, who has managed to cobble together two parfaits and some horrendously charred toast.

“This is disgusting,” Dennis says, for lack of anything non-_wedding_-related to say. He crunches one of the lesser-burned pieces between his molars to prove his point, chewing loudly to mask the sound of his heartbeat in his ears.

“Nobody’s asking you to eat it, dude,” Mac replies, fighting his way through his own slices. “I’d have been perfectly fine eating your share.”

Dennis glares. “Well, since _ this _ is the reason why that goddamn foghorn woke me up, I think I deserve my spoils.”

“You absolutely do not. When was the last time _ you _ cooked without setting off the smoke alarm?” Mac replies, pointing his spoon at Dennis.

“I’ll have you know, I’m a fantastic chef. Not like you, Mr. _ Mac’s Famous Mac-and-Cheese.” _

Mac blanches a little, presumably at the thought of Dennis Jr. “I thought we agreed not to bring that up, dude.”

Dennis thinks of the dog, and how excited Mac was, and he regrets saying anything. His stomach is twisting, and he’s not sure if it’s the toast or something else, so he puts down the half-slice that remains. Mac snatches it up almost immediately. “Doesn’t change the fact that you woke me up.”

“Fine,” Mac says, with the air of one who has been suffering for decades. (And he has, hasn’t he? Dennis tries not to pretend, at least in this facet of his life. Mac’s been lashed tight to Dennis’s side, and Dennis isn’t sure which he’s more scared of- that Mac will find his way out, or that he’ll choose to stay.) “You can pick the music today.”

“It was my turn anyways, asshole,” Dennis says through a mouthful of (actually half-decent) parfait.

“Movie night, then.”

“No— I don’t give a shit what we watch, just don’t try and fail at cooking again,” Dennis says, the irritation from earlier coming back in full force. _ God, _ he hates it when Mac does this— whatever _ this _ is.

“Jesus, what crawled up _ your _ ass and died?” Mac asks.

If drinking a protein shake accusingly was an art, Mac would be a master.

“What crawled up _ yours?” _ Dennis replies. It’s a pathetic retort, and Dennis knows it, and he knows that Mac knows it, so he shovels the last of the parfait into his mouth and gets up to put his dishes in the sink. He ignores Mac’s disgruntled muttering, and he busies himself with making the blackest cup of coffee anyone’s ever seen. There is no mention of the business card sitting on the counter, out in the open for God and everyone to see.

Rick Astley’s Biggest Hits are the only noise in the car on the way to Paddy’s. When they step foot into Paddy’s, Dee’s shrieking immediately fills Dennis’s ears, and for once, he can’t wait to hear about whatever bullshit problem she has. “What’re you bitching about this early in the morning?” Dennis asks.

“It’s one in the afternoon, dude,” Charlie says.

“Okay, A, I don’t really give a shit, and B, I woke up, like, two hours ago, thanks to Mac,” Dennis says. He can practically hear Mac’s eye roll.

“Yeah yeah, nobody gives a shit about your little _ domestic disagreement, _ I need to know what it means if your girlfriend is buying you a goddamn gift out of nowhere!” Dee yells.

“You have a _ girlfriend?” _ Dennis asks.

“You’re _ gay?” _ Mac asks.

Dennis whirls around on his heel. “Dude,” he says, _ “how _ did you not know that?”

“He didn’t know he was gay until he was like a million years old,” Dee dismisses, waving her hand. “But, like, seriously, what does it mean if she’s buying you something that you _ know _ she knows you want?”

“We never got to the whole _ girlfriend _ point,” Dennis says, turning back to face Dee. How the hell does goddamn _ Dee _ have a girlfriend? _ Jesus Christ. _ “How did _ you _ get a girlfriend, and how did _ we _ not know?”

“If you answer my question, I’ll answer yours!” Dee replies. “Just— someone give me an answer!”

“Well, depending on how long you’ve been together—”

“Six months, about.”

“Six _ months?!” _ Dennis exclaims. “And— we’re literally _ twins! _ How did you not tell me?”

“Answer my goddamn question, Dennis, you absolute shithead!” There’s fire in her eyes and she looks ready to pick up the lime knife and disembowel him, so he relents for a second.

“I dunno, it’s probably an anniversary gift! Now, I want my answers too, _ mega-shithead!” _

Dee’s eyes widen to proportions that are nearly comical, and she looks like she’s been slapped. “Shit,” she whispers. And then she storms out of the bar, leaving Dennis clueless.

He turns to Charlie. “How did she get a girlfriend?”

“I’m still kinda hung up on the gay part,” Mac says, looking deeply confused. His pout is even more pronounced, and it’s making Dennis feel off-balance. He’s had enough of that feeling.

“Jesus Christ, Mac,” Dennis starts, nearly sneering, vicious and merciless. The right words sit at the tip of his tongue, words invoking Jesus and God and queerness, all rolled into a few sentences that would get the conversation back on track— at the expense of Mac’s self-esteem, but why the hell should he care about that when he’s been out of the loop on something that big for six whole goddamn months?

He catches sight of Mac’s glare— it’s tinged with something that’s definitely not anger, and it brings a modicum of self-awareness back to Dennis. He takes a breath, and for the second time in as many days, he swallows his words. They leave behind a bitter, burning aftertaste, like shitty liquor without the intoxication, like something approaching shame (but shame isn’t meant for Golden Gods). “She’s gayer than Stevie Nicks.”

“Stevie Nicks is straight, dude,” Charlie says, leaning on his broom. “Hate to break it to you.”

“Wh— that’s not the point. Jesus, it’s like herding cats with you people,” Dennis says. He walks over to the bar and pours himself a shot of tequila, trying to numb the sensation in his body. He feels like his every nerve is thrumming, ready to catch fire the second they’re touched, and the heat of Mac’s silent stare is already enough for him.

“Cats aren’t actually that hard to herd,” Charlie says. “Just—”

_ “Don’t _ say anything about cat food, or I’ll use your _ guts _ to feed the fucking cats,” Dennis snaps. Charlie raises his eyebrows, and the tequila’s burn is replaced by that disgusting, almost-shame feeling again. Without a word, Charlie walks off into the bathroom.

Almost immediately, Mac rounds on Dennis. “Dude.”

Mac clearly has more to say, but for once, he holds his fucking tongue. Good. Dennis shouldn’t be the only one who has to do it around here. “What?” Dennis snarls, his face contorted and nearly-numb, like that time when Dee fucked up his botox job.

Mac doesn’t open his mouth— instead, he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a little orange bottle, the same one that Dennis has been staring at for months and months on end. Every feeling in his limbs suddenly recedes, being replaced by a tide of numbness. “How— how did you get that?” Dennis asks, barely remembering to add inflection to the end of his sentence.

“You’ve been acting off, man,” Mac says, his voice soft and firm (there’s some gay joke to be made of that, but Dennis can’t think of one for the life of him) all at once. “I just thought—”

“What? What the hell did you think, Mac? That if I took one of those things, I’d become a nice, normal person, and you could just fucking— what, have your way with me? Huh?” Dennis says, and the words spill out before he can stop them, and he can see Mac’s stony gaze falter and slip and there’s _ hurt _ underneath— but it’s back again, because Mac doesn’t fucking know when to quit. “Or did you think you could just make me some fucking _ vegetable _ and get out of this? Ride off into the sunset, with someone like— like Rex, or—”

_ “If _ I recall correctly,” Mac says, the acid that Dennis so rarely hears (that’s when he knows he’s really fucking up, because it’s always yelling or fury or fire or brimstone, never this coldness— designed to hurt, to cover up one’s own injuries—) filling his voice, _ “you _ were the one who ‘got out of this.’ Remember that, _ Brian?” _ Dennis flinches at the sound of the name, and Mac abruptly takes a step back, and it’s only then that Dennis realizes that Mac’s been stalking closer. _ “You _ rode off into the sunset, and honestly, dude—” and then Mac’s voice downshifts into something raw and honest and _ pathetic— _ “I’m starting to wonder why you came back.”

That’s what does it— that double-edged sword, ripped out from Mac’s throat and plunged into Dennis’s heart. “What— you know why.”

(If Dennis really wanted to fuck himself up, he’d admit that the Golden God— the man who isn’t a forty-three-year-old alcoholic fuckwad with an alarmingly strong tie to his gay roommate— is hanging in tatters, and that this is starting to become Dennis’s last attempt to cling to them. Dennis does _ not _ want to fuck himself up any further, because this is what always happens when he does, when he pushes the limits of everyone around him until they snap and hit him in the face, like a rubber band.)

“No, I don’t know _ why,” _ Mac says. “Because, bro, you— you seem to hate us all, and I mean _ really _ hate, not just some half-assed shit we say we feel about Dee. So if you hate it here with us so much, then why the hell did you come back to Philly?”

Dennis is suddenly reminded of one of his first-year psych classes, the memory coming back clear as crystal. It had been one of the only classes that he and Dee shared. The professor had been young, fresh out of his doctorate, and ginger, with hair and a beard and a dusting of freckles that were all such a dark red that they were practically brown, and he’d said that any extreme emotions— hate and love and anger and fear— were all incredibly similar, not opposites like they’d all thought. Dennis had thought it was stupid at the time, but something in the darkest recesses of his brain finally clicks now, and he still doesn’t understand completely but he’s suddenly ten times more exhausted than he’d been before. He slumps over the bar, so abruptly that Mac’s hand shoots out and grips his bicep. “Mac,” he says, and every word that he wants to say comes up and sticks in his throat, bottlenecking in the most frustrating fucking _ mess _ that Dennis has ever seen. So he swallows them down again, and he tries again, simpler this time— they still need to be forced out, but they end up in the open. “I’m sorry.”

(He’s never going to let go of the Golden God, but maybe he can loosen his grip a little. Just for right now. Just to make Mac lose that uncharacteristic sharpness.)

Mac’s eyebrows shoot up on his face— Jesus, does Dennis really apologize that little?— “Dude,” Mac says, “are you okay?”

Dennis suddenly itches for a drink in his hand, something to make this conversation easier— but then he remembers something that Charlie had told him years ago after AA (because of _ course _ Charlie would listen at fucking AA, of all places), that alcohol used as a crutch only leads to bad places. “Do you want to go get some lunch?”

Mac’s eyebrows go from comically raised to comically scrunched. Everything that Mac does is a goddamn performance piece, like the fucking Nightman musical, and Dennis is starting to wonder if that has something to do with the gay thing. “What?”

“Do you want to go for lunch, Mac, Jesus Christ,” Dennis says. It lacks the edge that nearly all of his words have had since he got back. “I’m hungry.”

They ate an hour ago, and Dennis is not remotely hungry (even if he was, he wouldn’t want to eat a thousand-calorie hoagie), but Mac nods, once, slowly. Like it’s a fucking equation that he has to solve or something (and Mac has always been shit at algebra— the only reason he’d passed is because of Dennis). But a soft smile takes over his face, and he says, “Yeah, sure, bro. I’m bulking right now anyway.”

Dennis knows that this is a lie. He’s an expert in lies, and he usually hates it when Mac lies to him, but this one seems bearable— and it’s because of him, really, that Mac is lying, so he lets his mouth curve into a smile to match Mac’s. “Nice. Where?”

“I want some hoagies,” Mac says.

“Hoagies, then.” It’s not very much like their old dynamic, but something slots into place, and as they walk out together, Dennis feels more in step with Mac than he has in the past year— maybe in the past twenty.


	3. Dee's Banging the Waitress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the trash twins unite for a Bitching Session™

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for disordered thoughts

Dennis doesn’t order a hoagie, but he somehow ends up eating three huge bites of Mac’s, which. Well. It’s not a lot of food, and it doesn’t taste horrible. The drive back to the bar is much better than the drive this morning, even though Mac picks the most horrendous 2000s-rock band to listen to. Everything is going fine, and then, when Mac is getting out of the car, something small and white flutters out of his pocket.

Dennis knows what it is almost immediately. Last night’s whole shitty conversation with the chef comes flooding back, and he scrabbles for some small piece of the fragile mental stability he enjoyed for the past hour to keep himself afloat. “Dude!” Mac calls, already at the door. “Let’s go!”

“Untwist, Mac,” Dennis says, trying to keep the sharp, angry terror out of his voice. He wrenches open the door with more force than necessary, and then he sees the latest of Dee’s cars skidding down the block, an overly-tanned arm hanging out of the open driver’s-side window.  _ Thank fuck, _ he thinks— the first and last time (if only) that he’s ever thought that about his twin. “You go ahead, I need to talk to Big Bird.”

Dee’s door slams as she gets out. “Y’know, the whole bird thing—  _ starting _ to border on mean,” she says. She’s twisting her hands back and forth, and Dennis doesn’t remember if she picked up the habit from him or the other way around.

“You  _ do _ look like one,” Dennis says, the words worn out, like one of Mac’s old de-sleeved T-shirts. He’d never admit it, especially since he’d been the one to drag Mac out to shop for actual tank tops, but he kind of misses the raggedy-twink-off-the-streets look.

“It’s getting old,” Dee says, startling him out of his reverie. “So. What do you want, shitass?”

God, he’s too tired for this. “Can we have a regular conversation? Like, without the insults?”

Dee’s eyebrows raise, and she looks like she’s going to laugh in his face. “Is this, like, a prank? ‘Cause that’s— that’s really fucking rich, coming from you.”

“Mac and I are getting gay married,” Dennis blurts. The incredulous look slides off Dee’s face, replaced with one of pure shock.

She splutters for a moment, and then she says, “Goddamn, it’s about time.”

Dennis scowls, anger flowing back to him like a changing tide. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Actually— y’know what, don’t answer that. We’re getting gay married for free food.”

Dee furrows her brows. “Huh?”

“Look— we did the fake proposal scheme, and then the chef came out and he was like ‘oh, that was such a good speech, I’m gay, I want to cater your wedding for free,’ and yeah.”

“So he just slipped the ‘I’m gay’ in like that?” Dee is grinning like she’s actually  _ made _ the “slipping in” pun, instead of just dangling the bait.

Dennis forges past it. “No, idiot! But—”

“What happened to ‘no insults?’” Dee asks, looking like she can’t decide between being angry or smug. “I knew you wouldn’t do it.”

“Oh my God, can you shut up about yourself for a second? I have a serious problem here—”

“You didn’t care about  _ my _ serious problem this morning, why should I care about yours?” Dee asks, and— well, she’s kind of right, not that Dennis would admit it. “Give me  _ one _ good reason why.”

“Because you’re my sister,” Dennis tries. He knows it won’t work— it’s never worked, but a tiny, tiny part of him, one that he honestly didn’t think would see the sun again until an hour and a half ago, holds a spark of hope.

Dee’s unimpressed expression tells him to try again, and he drowns the spark in a flood of irritation. It’s never done him much good anyways.

“Because it involves your brother  _ and _ your friend.”

Dee actually laughs, short and sharp and slightly exasperated, like she’s got a shiv and is about to lose patience and stab him. “You’re barely my brother, and Mac sure as hell isn’t my friend. And  _ my _ problem involved me  _ and _ Charlie, so…”

“Wait, your problem involved Charlie?” Dennis asks, his brain kicking into high gear, looking for something to use against her. “You’re not dating him, obviously… someone  _ close _ to him, maybe?” His theatrics are as worn as the bird jokes, as faded as everything else in this conversation, but Dee’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly— he’s not her twin for nothing (even though it seems like it sometimes), and he catches it easily. “Holy shit, are you dating Mrs. Kelly?”

“Ew! No! Jesus!” Dee exclaims, her voice high and piercing. “Jesus fucking—  _ why? _ Why the  _ hell _ would you think that?”

The pieces click together, and Dennis’s eyes widen. “Are you dating the  _ Waitress?” _ Dee winces a little. “And Charlie doesn’t know?”

“No, that’s— why would I—” Her fake laugh is out in full force. “No way! That would totally break Charlie’s little heart, that would be super fucked up—”

Dennis grins slowly, and there’s too much teeth in it to be a normal smile, but he doesn’t really feel like toning down his genius. “Now that I have dirt on you, will you care about my problems?”

“Fine!” Dee exclaims. “Fuck you.”

“Okay, so now Mac and I have to get gay married, right—”

“You could call the chef and tell him that you called off the engagement.”

Something in him rebels against that idea with full force, and he decides to drown that part of him, too. “No,” he says, too fast, too intense, too  _ everything. _ And of course Dee notices, because the whole  _ twin _ thing goes two ways.

He can practically  _ hear _ the “oh, shit” happening in her brain. “So you  _ do _ want to gay marry him.”

“Why the  _ fuck _ would I want to do that?” Dennis asks, injecting it with too much bluster and too much confidence. God, this is a shitstorm. Dee just rolls her eyes at him, and he deflates. He’s not going to fucking talk about this shit right now, because he’s not gay, and he’s definitely not gay for Mac, but so what if marrying Mac would make sure that he wouldn’t leave Dennis? That doesn’t mean anything.

“Let’s just assume that you’re—”

_ “Don’t—” _

“—gay for Mac, and move on. It seems like the only option here is to get gay married, dude. Just do it, and then, like, don’t get divorced or whatever.”

“It’s not that easy,  _ Deandra,” _ Dennis says, hoping that the use of her full name will make his sister stop being such a colossal bitch for two seconds. It doesn’t, if her rather spectacular eye roll is anything to go by. “And look— I’m not fucking gay for Mac, okay?” That familiar panic is starting to rise in his throat again as he struggles to keep control of the situation, because a Golden God, even a diminished one, does  _ not _ fucking lose control— and Dee must see all this, because her face softens. As much as it’s possible for such a bony face to soften.

“Yeah, okay. But gay marrying him wouldn’t be the end of the world,” she says, her voice gentle, like she’s teaching a kindergartener to count or some shit.

“No,” Dennis allows. “And I don’t really know what to do.”

The exaggerated patience in her voice is really starting to drive Dennis crazy, but it’s better than the gay-for-Mac accusations that she was throwing around like Molotov cocktails. “Again. Play it by ear. Stall him. And if you think you can—”  _ is this some pussy shit she learned in therapy? _ Dennis wonders,  _ of course I can do whatever the fuck she’s thinking of— _ “then maybe, y’know. Tell Mac how you feel, or something.”

She’s literally just repeated her fucking points, and Dennis  _ knows _ this, and he  _ knows _ how stupid she’s being, yet he can’t stop himself from calming down a little. “Okay. Yeah, I can totally do this. Definitely.”

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” Dee says, her smirk beginning its return.

“Dee, don’t be a bitch, or I’ll tell Charlie that you’re dating the Waitress,” Dennis tells her. The smirk turns into a scowl, and Dennis grins, back to his usual excessive amount of teeth and excessive amount of smugness, before heading into the bar and leaving his sister outside to get tanner and blonder with every second in the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!


	4. The Gang Plans a Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the gang brainstorms. sadly, they only have three braincells between them all, and it devolves rapidly, which means the alternate title for this chapter could be "The Gang Narrowly Avoids a Bar Fight."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for dennis repressing the shit out of himself

Dennis fiddles with a coin that he found in his jacket pocket as Frank levels him with a stare. It’s not an accusatory one— it’s barely even befuddled— but it still makes Dennis want to get off the barstool and start running. Next to him, Mac is rigidly still, with the exception of his fingers, which  _ tap-tap-tap _ on the counter. Dennis wishes he could pass Mac a coin to use instead— the noise is annoyingly loud, especially in the already awkward silence. The metal disk— cool at first, now uncomfortably warm— loops its way through Dennis’s fingers, around his thumb, constantly in motion, until Frank opens his mouth and Dennis drops it like it shocked him.

“So you two are doing the gay marriage thing,” Frank says.

“Oh, like Frank and I did!” Charlie pipes in.

Dennis almost winces. “Yeah, sure.”

“Well, since your credit score ain’t a fuckin’  _ hundred, _ you’re the me in this situation! What the hell do you get out of it?”

This time, Dennis actually recoils, saying, “Don’t— don’t compare us. No. This is nothing like that,” as Mac scowls and says, “Since when has my credit score been that good?”

“Well, you just said—”

“Frank, shut up,” Dennis says. Dee snorts and Dennis ignores her and it’s just another day, except for the enormous, Mac-and-Dennis shaped elephant in the room that apparently only Dennis can see. He forges on nonetheless. “Mac, I’ve told you, the credit thing is on a five-hundred point scale.” Frank grimaces, and Dennis turns back to face him. “We’re doing it for free food.”

“Huh?” Frank’s face crinkles up, folding at the seams like he’s collapsing into himself. It’s an amusing process. Dennis has never been happier that he’s Bruce Mathis’s biological son instead of disgustingly-aged Frank.

“Dennis fake-proposed to get free dinner, and then the chef came out and he was like  _ oh my God that was great I’m gay let me cater your wedding,” _ Mac summarizes. He looks incredibly bored. His fingers are still tapping away.

“So did he really just, like, drop the ‘gay’ thing like that?” Charlie asks.

“Hey, that’s what I said!” Dee exclaims, and Charlie high-fives her.

Dennis can’t help but wonder if this is why his doctor says he has high blood pressure. He picks up the coin again, and he contemplates throwing it at Dee’s head as hard as he possibly fucking can. “Can you two, like, shut up? For five goddamn seconds? Is that so fucking hard to ask?”

“I dunno, why don’t you take that huge stick outta your ass first?” Dee asks him, the last vestiges of familial affection drained from her voice.

“Why don’t you stop shrieking like a bird who’s also somehow a failed actor, and then we’ll see?” Dennis replies. He’s practically hissing now, and as if he’s viewing the scene from a mile away, he wonders when Dee went from being pathetically defensive about her acting career to three seconds away from a bar brawl.

Mac’s hand shoots out and grabs Dee’s arm before she manages to bring her beer bottle down on the counter. “Whoa, hold on, okay? As much as I’d like to see Dee try and smash a bottle, preferably over someone’s head—”

She turns her glare on Mac like an attack dog that’s been bred with a parrot. “The fuck do you mean,  _ try? _ I’ll do it right now!” Dee spits, wrenching her bony wrist out of Mac’s grip. This time it’s Dennis’s turn to grab his sister— he wraps his fingers around the descending bottle and yanks it out of her grasp as Mac flinches away and raises his hands to cover his head. 

“Not the time!” Mac bellows. The intimidating effect is somewhat weakened by the fact that he’s still covering his face. Dennis’s breaths are coming heavy, even though all he did was snatch a bottle away from Dee. He wonders how they’d all react if  _ he _ smashed the bottle over one of their heads.

Dee crosses her arms. “Fine, fine, you’re right.”

Mac lowers his arms.  _ “Thank _ you, Dee. Okay, so now you all know, so we need to start planning this thing. I’m thinking it happens in, like, a month or so, you know, ‘cause we need to plan and shit but we’re not really gonna go all out, but we still need time to get, like, those super fancy tuxes that they only let you rent if you call in advance—”

“Who put  _ you _ in charge of wedding planning?” Dennis asks, suddenly itching for an argument. This whole situation needs  _ some _ degree of normalcy. “Last time I checked, I was getting gay married too.”

“Fine, dude, what’re your opinions on it?” Mac asks. He sounds like he actually cares, and Dennis doesn’t know what to make of it. He  _ can’t _ make anything of it, because Mac is staring at him with raised eyebrows and wide eyes and a gaze like he’s expecting more from Dennis than he could ever give.

God, Dennis can’t even give Mac a good fake wedding.

“Y’know what? I’m sick of faking,” Dennis says, his pinky finger starting to tap against the brown glass of the bottle. His heart is thrumming along, like it knows he’s about to say something stupid and it’s trying to warn him. Like a smoke detector or something. He lets the silence fester, looking around with raised eyebrows like he’s trying to be dramatic, staring at each of them in turn to try and figure out what to say to follow up. He’s always been good at playing an audience. Dee’s expression mirrors his, except the drama is replaced with sarcasm (maybe that’s why she was such a shitty actor), Charlie actually looks like he’s engaged in Dennis’s bit, Frank looks bored to shit, and Mac’s brows are furrowed in the almost-angry expression that he wears when he’s trying to figure out if something has gone well or not. Dennis takes a breath. “We should just do the whole thing in clothes that we already own, in a place that’s cheap as shit—”

“Oh! Like Fairmount!” Mac supplies.

“D’you really wanna get stabbed on your wedding day, though?” Dee asks.

“Dee, shut up,” Dennis replies. “Mac, that’s a really good idea.”

“She’s got a good point though, guys. Some of those dudes in Fairmount really hate me an’ Frank,” Charlie says.

Dennis narrows his eyes at Charlie, who squirms under the scrutiny. “Why the fuck would some random dudes in Fairmount hate you and Frank?”

“Uh, we maybe stole their denim,” Charlie says, jamming his hands in his pockets.

Dee’s mouth drops open. “Denim. As in  _ bridge denim. _ As in  _ people other than you two freakshows wear fucking bridge denim.” _

“It’s a good investment, Deandra!” Frank exclaims, getting off his stool and shaking his finger. “And I won’t have you blaspheming—”

“Hey, there’s no need to bring Jesus into this!” Mac warns.

“Who the hell mentioned Jesus?” Frank exclaims.

Charlie nods. “Yeah, I’m with Frank on this one—”

“Oh my God, how do neither of you know what  _ blaspheme _ means?” Dee says.

“Can we just shut up?” Dennis yells. “For one goddamn second, can we all just shut the fuck up?”

“I dunno, can you—”

“Dee, if you say one more thing I’m going to slap your nose out of its setting!” Dennis says. If you were a douchewad who’s hard of hearing, or you were Dee (same difference), you could  _ maybe _ say that Dennis shrieked it, but you’d be wrong. Because shrieking doesn’t get bitchy best friends and bitchy quasi-family members to pause in fear and shock (or offense, doesn’t matter)— deep, manly yelling does. “Okay. Now, Charlie, you and Frank will call someone from the city whatever-the-fuck-agency, the one that runs all the parks. Mac and I will call that fucking chef. Dee will shuttle between the two groups with cold beer.”

Dee grabs Charlie’s beer bottle and raises it. “No the fuck I won’t.”

“You wanna fucking go,  _ bitch?” _ Dennis replies, raising his own bottle. Before he can lunge at his sister, Mac’s solid form is in between the two of them, pushing them away from each other. Dennis’s shoulder is warm where Mac’s hand is splayed across it, even through the fabric of his shirt. He decides not to think about it too much.

“Seriously, not the goddamn time, guys!” Mac yells.

“Yeah, and I kinda have to clean that floor every time you guys break glass on it, so—”

“That’s the whole reason we  _ pay _ you, dude,” Mac tells him.

Dennis can barely hear him— everything in his brain is fixating on where Mac’s hand is touching him.

“Yeah, but—”

Mac’s not gay for Dennis, and Dennis isn’t gay for Mac, though, and the fact that Dennis is frozen in place with Mac’s hand practically on his neck— that seems kinda gay, even though Dennis is as straight as an arrow.

“Oh my God, we’re not shattering glass right now, right? Why does it matter?” Dee asks.

Well,  _ Mac _ is gay. But to assume that Mac is in love with him, that seems a little homophobic. Not every gay guy is in love with every straight guy, even if the gay guy fake-kisses and dry humps and mimes giving a blowjob to the straight guy, even if the straight guy is such a great catch that he’s probably broken half the hearts in Philly. And Dennis is definitely, one hundred percent straight.

“Well— y’know, for the future,” Charlie says, shrugging.

Except for that time—  _ those times, _ he corrects himself, his stomach twisting a little— at Penn. But that doesn’t mean anything, because everyone experiments, and if it felt better with a guy than with a girl— well, the male g-spot is in the ass. Of course it would feel better.

Dennis decides to pay attention to the situation and the conversation and the wedding instead, just in time to catch Dee twisting out of Mac’s grip and fixing Charlie with a stare so acidic it could burn through the countertop. It’s a stark contrast to her sickly-sweet smile. “Consider it noted.”

“That’s great and all, but let’s get back to the wedding, maybe?” Dennis snaps, just as acidic as his twin. “Dee, if you’re gonna be a bitch—”

“Don’t even try it, Dennis,” Dee retorts, hefting the bottle.

“—then you can, like, help Charlie and Frank, because Frank is technologically illiterate and Charlie— well.”

“I hate you,” Dee says. “C’mon, boners.” She throws Dennis one last glare, which Dennis gladly returns, before grabbing Charlie and Frank by the arms and hauling them off to the office despite their protests.

“God, what a bitch,” Mac and Dennis say in unison. They stare at each other for a second, nonplussed, and then Dennis snorts.

“Great minds think alike, bro, I’m telling you,” Mac says with a grin, his hand still clasping Dennis’s shoulder. His palm is so warm that Dennis is suddenly sure that there’ll be a red imprint under the shirt, even though Mac’s grip has loosened considerably. A strand of his hair is falling forward, and Dennis, almost unconsciously, pushes it back behind Mac’s ear, as if he hasn’t been the one to snap and yell and shout at Mac for pulling the same sort of shit over the past few years. Mac’s grin falters and his hand drops, and Dennis’s heart twists and turns and dips like it’s a car on a rollercoaster that goes straight to hell. “Let’s— let’s call the chef, then,” Mac says. The false cheer makes Dennis’s heart sink even lower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! :))


	5. Mac and Dennis Reinvent the Waltz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the park is OUT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for minor internalized homophobia

One part of Dennis’s brain is conducting a screaming match between him and Frank and Charlie. The other part is watching Mac and burying an extremely uncomfortable truth.

He can’t be sure if he hates Mac or he loves him. For the past few years, as Mac has crawled his way out of the closet and Dennis has crawled his way out of oblivion (self-imposed or otherwise, he doesn’t know), the scale has been tipping steadily towards hate. After all, why would he go to North Dakota, if it wasn’t hate? Why would he yell and belittle and snap if it was love?

But the stupid memory of the stupid professor going on about hate and love and how they’re more similar than different—  _ that _ is directly responsible for this clusterfuck. The ostrich’s head is slowly coming out of the sand (not that Dennis resembles anything like an ostrich, that’s better left to Dee), and Dennis would give  _ anything _ to bury it again. To kick Mac back into the closet and lock the door, to throw himself back into the fog of denial. To live life basically in a relationship, except without the dependance on Mac to keep his heart whole. Dennis  _ likes _ having people’s hearts in his hand. He can do anything with them, twist and turn and poke and juggle.

Maybe the whole reason that Dennis feels heartless all the time is because he ripped it out and gave it to Mac twenty years ago. And what’s stopping Mac from fucking off with it to North Dakota, or somewhere even farther, where he’d never come back from? God knows nothing stopped Dennis.

And now Mac is standing next to Dennis with a hand on his shoulder, taking his side against Charlie and Frank like none of that ever happened. If Mac has Dennis’s heart, then Dennis has Mac’s, and he doesn’t fucking  _ want _ it. He doesn’t want that responsibility.

God, when did he become such a gay fucking sap?

Is he gay?

_ Shut the fuck up, _ he tells himself. His internal diatribe is getting far too mushy and introspective for his taste. Better to focus on the external. “How the  _ shitting fuck _ did you manage to get  _ banned _ from a  _ public park, douchewads?” _ he yells.

“I told you! It was a run-in with a security guard, and we were kinda high, ‘cause Frank’s bridge friends had given us some great new thing to snort—”

“Oh my  _ God, _ Charlie, nobody cares what you snorted!” Mac says. “What the hell are we gonna do for a venue now? And we already told the chef that it was going to be nature-themed—”

Irritation sparks in Dennis’s chest like an unwitting match about to be thrown into a tank of gasoline. “It’s not a real wedding, Mac!”

Mac whirls on him, nostrils flared. “Well, I like to put actual effort into my schemes, so forgive me!”

Fighting with Mac is like doing a very brutal version of the waltz. They both know where not to step, where it’s safe to go, how to execute every flawless verbal maneuver that leaves the other speechless even though it’s been used a thousand times in a thousand different ways. “Oh yeah? Well, then why did you suggest the park? That’s the most cheap-ass shit—”

_ “You _ suggested that!” Mac bellows, his cheeks flushed. Dennis thinks that the ostrich’s head is far enough removed from the sand that he can recognize the pinkness as almost  _ cute, _ can appreciate the flush as one appreciates a painting, and all the while not put a name on where the recognition and the appreciation are coming from. That’s doable.

“I just said let’s do it in a cheap place! Not a place where you could easily get disemboweled!”

Mac puffs his chest up, and Dennis wonders if Mac’s shirt will actually hold. “Bro, you  _ know _ I would be on that security threat— y’know, I wouldn’t’ve even cleared him to be around us!”

“Oh my  _ God, _ with the fucking  _ ocular patdowns _ again,  _ Jesus—” _

“Don’t bring him into this, dude!”

“You just use that as an excuse to check out guys!”

“That— what— that’s a danger-assessing technique, asshole!”

Dennis rolls his eyes, snatching the knife that Dee’s using to cut limes out of her hands, ignoring her indignant squawk. Brandishing it, he says, “Oh yeah? What if I fucking—”

Mac kicks the knife out of Dennis’s hand with surprising accuracy, and the next thing Dennis knows, there’s a leg hooked behind his own and he’s sprawled on the ground with Mac’s knees on either side of him, his hands pinning Dennis’s wrists above him. His shoulders twinge and his fingers ache and his back hurts but Mac’s face is less than a foot from his own and Mac’s lips are pink and parted and his hair is falling forwards again and fluttering in the gusts of his exhales. Dennis can’t push it back this time. “See?” Mac says, breath ragged, tone strange. “I told you so.”

In the small portion of his brain that is still working, Dennis is mildly impressed. “Have you been taking lessons?”

“No, but I know this guy at the gym, and he’s been giving me tips,” Mac replies, grinning.

“Seriously, dude, that was—”

“Hey! You wanna get off’a each other and figure out what to do?” Frank yells. Mac scrambles off Dennis, jumping to his feet like he’s been electrified. Dennis takes his time getting up, nary a helping hand in sight. “Okay then, I ain’t payin’ for some expensive venue—”

“Holy shit, just do it at the bar,” Dee says, sounding more exasperated than she has the right to be. “Nobody has to pay for any venue and nobody has to get shanked. Now can one of you give me my knife back?”

“Get it yourself,” Dennis replies instinctively. “You know, we could just do it at the bar.”

Dee lets out a grunt of frustration. “I just fucking—  _ God!” _

“That’s a good idea, Dennis,” Mac says. Dennis grins. “Yeah, then we don’t have to pay and nobody gets disemboweled.”

“I’ll disembowel you right fucking now,” Dee calls as she picks up the fallen knife and points it at Mac.

“Dee, don’t be silly. I’d simply knock you to the floor and disarm you like I did to Dennis.”

“You wouldn’t do it like you did to Dennis,” Dee snickers.

Dennis wishes to God he had the knife right now so he could stab her to death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!


	6. Mac and Dennis Buy Suits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dennis will NOT have the cat-piss polo worn at his wedding >:((

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for just like,,, dennis being kinda fucked up abt sex and shit

November 15th is rapidly approaching, and for once, shit is getting done. They get Artemis on bar duty, Schmitty for DJ-ing, and Ben the Soldier for photos. On November 1st, Dennis decides to breach the topic of suits. He does it carefully, with tact, manipulating Mac into thinking it was his own idea. Dennis is a master of these situations. A  _ master. _

“You can’t wear your fucking cat-piss polo to the wedding.”

Mac looks up from his protein shake. “It doesn’t look like cat piss.”

“Yes, it does, and I won’t have you wearing it.”

“You know we’re not getting married for real, right?”

Of course Dennis fucking knows that. It’s been keeping him up at night for the past two weeks. “Yes, but we still have to  _ look _ like we’re getting married, and wearing a goddamn  _ polo _ does not make it look like we’re getting married!”

“Calm down, dude!” Mac exclaims.

“Then buy a fucking suit!”

Mac stares at him, daring him to look away. Dennis holds his gaze, boring a hole into Mac’s skull. A minute passes. Then two. Dennis is starting to wonder whether Mac is ever going to give in. Then Mac sighs, and he rolls his eyes, like he’s humoring Dennis (of course, Dennis knows better). “Fine, we’ll go shopping.”

_ “Thank _ you,” Dennis huffs, standing up and offering a hand to Mac. He takes it, even though he’s doing more to pull Dennis down than Dennis is doing to pull him up.

“Dude, you gotta put your back into it,” Mac says, hovering three inches above the couch, thoroughly unfazed.

“This is— I’m doing something  _ nice _ for you, asshole!” Dennis says, releasing Mac’s hand. Mac falls (the use of the word  _ fall _ implies that Mac was, at some point, high enough above the couch for the landing to do some damage), and his shake sloshes out a little onto his hand. He glares at Dennis, and without breaking eye contact, he licks the disgusting, frothy liquid off of his fingers.

Dennis’s brain short-circuits. All available blood rushes to his dick. Mac’s fingers, slick with spit, shine under the living room’s lights. Mac is still glaring at him, his lips wet. Some of the shake is still clinging to the corner of his mouth, and Dennis feels the sudden urge— the  _ need— _ to lick it off.

He shakes his head and thinks of the most boner-killing things that exist. Frank. Dee. Cricket. Frank, Dee, and Cricket all in the same room.  _ God. Gross. _

That solves the problem down south, at least to some degree.

But it doesn’t change how Mac is looking at him, like he’s simultaneously the most irritating and the most endearing thing in the world. He squirms under Mac’s gaze, and he elects to huff and scowl and say in the most petulant tone ever, “Get your ass off the fucking couch and let’s  _ go.” _

“You made me spill my shake,” Mac replies, and he breaks his stare in favor of staring down at the beads of liquid dripping down the side of his cup. There. Moment gone, crisis averted, everything can go back to normal (even though the small part of Dennis that’s wishing that Mac kept staring is  _ not _ normal). And then Mac licks the droplets off the side of the cup, and everything short-circuits again.

Dennis lets out the tiniest of sounds, like a  _ fuck _ that got stuck in his throat, and if it were anyone but Mac, it would’ve gone unnoticed. “Dude, you good?” Mac asks, the cup still raised to his mouth.

_ No! _ Dennis wants to scream,  _ No, because I’m being super gay right now and it’s all your fault and it’s not fucking fair! _ “You know, that cup is probably coated with germs, idiot,” he says instead, aiming for disgusted and disengaged and anything other than ready to do what he’s ready to do.

“Bro, are you insulting my dishwashing skills?” Mac says, spilled shake all but forgotten. “Because I’ll have you know—”

“Look, can we just go?” Dennis asks. He’s not in the mood to argue with Mac, even though it’s practically second nature by now. He wishes to God that Mac would fight back, like he used to, like he would when he thought that everything was a challenge. But instead his eyes go soft and sharp all at once, like  _ of course _ and  _ what happened to you _ all rolled into one. The softness wins out, though, and he stands up.

“Okay, but you’re not gonna pick my suit.”

“Fine, dude, but I at least want input.”

Mac considers it, his brows scrunched and mouth turned down, like he’s an eighteen-year-old again instead of a fully-grown man. “Fine.”

Dennis is struck— blindsided, really— by the sudden reappearance of willing compromise in their lives. He’d grown used to living without it, without the barriers that it provided, pushing against Mac— against everyone— until they were backed up to the edge of a cliff and Dennis was ready to give the final shove. Dennis wouldn’t admit it out loud, but it’s nice to have those barriers back, even if just for a little while.

They get into the car and drive to a shop just outside Philly, one they aren’t banned by or hated in or responsible for the closure of. Their price range is bottomless, Dennis says, Frank’s card dangling from his fingers. The attendant looks them up and down— Dennis looks respectable enough, but Mac is wearing the fucking RIOT shirt and basketball shorts. “If you’re really thinking about serving us in a subpar manner because of my partner’s attire, despite our ability  _ and _ willingness to pay, then we’ll take our platinum card somewhere else, where we aren’t being fucking  _ judged _ by a snotty college dropout who doesn’t know his head from his ass,” Dennis spits. Mac flashes a grin at Dennis and crosses his arms, jutting his chest out in a manner that’s become a little hotter, not to mention actually imposing, ever since he gained all that muscle.

The attendant raises his eyebrows at the two of them. “Feel free to do so, Mr. Reynolds, as we don’t tolerate abusive language in this store.”

Dennis can feel the heat rising in his cheeks, his successful-verbal-beatdown high crashing to the ground. He takes a step towards the attendant, who looks unperturbed. God, Dennis is going to wipe that bullshit look off of his smug fucking face. “Okay, you obviously don’t know how to treat customers, especially of the  _ paying _ variety—” he takes another step towards the attendant, narrowing the gap between them to just a few inches, and he raises his hand to grab the attendant’s tie— “so why don’t you take that massive rod—”

“We’ll be leaving now, assdouche,” Mac says, wrapping his hand around Dennis’s bicep. “Thanks for nothing.”

The shock renders Dennis unable to protest or yell or do anything, really, other than just let go of the attendant’s tie and let Mac practically drag him out and around the corner into an alleyway. The door closes behind them, the tinkling chime of the bell audible even from the alley, like a corkscrew driving into Dennis’s brain. He snaps back to life, whirling on Mac. “What the  _ fuck _ was that,” he hisses, the rage, previously directed at the attendant, refocusing to target Mac.

“Dude, we can’t afford to get banned from  _ another _ store,” Mac says, his firm grip on Dennis’s arm at odds with the borderline worry in his eyes.  _ Like a fucking puppy-dog, _ Dennis thinks, anger coursing through him.

“Why the fuck not? We have to go to another store now, you should’ve let me punch his fucking lights out,  _ nobody _ can just fucking—  _ disrespect _ us like that, Mac—”

Mac grabs Dennis’s other arm and pulls Dennis closer towards him with a force that’s more urgent than violent. All Dennis can see is Mac, Mac’s face, Mac’s mouth, Mac’s eyes, like a refrain to a song that’s stuck in his head. “Dude, listen,” Mac says. “Yeah, that guy was a fucking  _ prick, _ but, y’know, sometimes conflict isn’t the answer.”  _ Hypocrite, _ Dennis wants to say, but his mouth is too dry.  _ You fucking hypocrite, when did you become— _ “Now we can just get suits without the cops getting involved, right?”

Dennis spies uncertainty in Mac’s eyes, and he hates him for it (or loves him for it, but one option is vastly more preferable to the other). The rage is building up in him, ready to spill out of his lips like acid, and Dennis is practically unable to stop it, because it feels  _ good, _ like how crack felt. He’s going to regret it, whatever he says next, maybe even before it comes out of his mouth. “Where’d you learn that, your fucking  _ gay—” _

_ “Dennis,” _ Mac says, his tone a warning and a plea all at once. The words freeze on Dennis’s tongue, and the bitterness evaporates, and  _ God, _ Dennis is grateful. Mac would’ve forgiven him for what he would’ve said, eventually— he always does— but Dennis is so fucking glad, glad that he doesn’t have to live with one more shitty thing he’s done, that he surges up and kisses Mac square on the mouth.

Mac’s lips are soft, and his arms push Dennis’s away weakly (even though he’s still gripping Dennis with the intensity of a thousand suns, even though his lips are still very much pressed against Dennis’s). Dennis opens his mouth, surrenders to Mac’s whims, and he doesn’t even miss the power he could’ve had. (Love and sex and everything else, it’s all about power, about control, about being the one on top so that nobody can stab you in the back; except not with Mac, because Mac could never hurt Dennis, not in a million years.)

And then Mac pulls away, recoiling like he’s been burnt, and every single bit of inadequacy and need for control and  _ wanting _ (wanting what, he doesn’t know— or he does, but again, one is vastly more preferable) comes rushing back to fill the space that Mac has just vacated. A thousand words rise in Dennis’s throat, and none of them come out, because Mac looks like he’s been stranded out at sea or some shit like that, lost and alone and a little fearful and a little pissed. “What— what was that, dude?” Mac asks, feigning nonchalance almost as well as Dennis can. His dark eyes are wide open, and he looks like he wants Dennis to give him the  _ right _ answer. Dennis has no clue what that answer would be.

The words in his throat disappear, like smoke rising up to become stars.  _ It was nothing. An accident. Something I’ve wanted for a long time. _ “Uh.”

Silence, almost as bad as the silence that had filled the apartment the first few days after North Dakota, fills the air. Mac ruptures it after a moment, saying “Let’s go get suits!” with a false cheer that’s worse than the quiet. Dennis’s gaze locks on Mac’s lips, still pink and wet and delicious, and he almost breaks and kisses Mac again.

Almost.

“Yeah. Yeah, there’s another shop down the road, we can just walk,” Dennis says, practically babbling. God, he’s so fucking tired.

“Yeah. Yeah. Sounds good,” Mac replies. “Let’s— yep.”

They walk out of the alleyway, and Dennis  _ knows _ what it looks like to any passerby, and all he can think is that he wishes the pictures in their heads had been real. He leaves a space between him and Mac, and he knows that Mac notices. The walk is short enough that it doesn’t become an issue (as everything with them inevitably does), and they arrive without incident.

This attendant isn’t a douchewad— she just brings out a pile of suits that she thinks will fit them, and Dennis is incredibly grateful. Within three suits, he’s found the one— it’s black, with lapels and cuffs and a breast pocket that are embroidered with black silk, and he gives the attendant his measurements so the store can tailor it. He sneaks a peek at the logbook the store uses to store the measurements, noting that he’s the slimmest waist they have. Of course he would be. He’s the only one here who cares about his image enough.

He heads into Mac’s dressing room, and he immediately spies five discarded outfits. “Dude, what’s taking so long?” Dennis asks, feeling some of his normal irritation return to him, cutting through and distorting the memory of Mac’s lips on his. Mac turns around, buttoning his jacket, and Dennis can’t help but notice how the arms of the suit are struggling to contain Mac’s muscle.

It’s a good-looking suit— charcoal, with a silky shine to it. “Nope,” Mac says. “This isn’t it.” Dennis rolls his eyes.

“You know—” he looks around, double-checking that the attendant still isn’t there— “you said it yourself, literally two hours ago. This isn’t a real wedding.”

“Yeah, I  _ know, _ Dennis,” Mac says through gritted teeth. “I’d just like to have a nice-looking suit. Jesus.”

“Since when have  _ you _ cared about that shit?”

“Well, I might as well take the  _ opportunity,” _ Mac says, pulling off the jacket and starting to unbutton the shirt. Dennis’s mouth goes dry.

“What— what’re you doing there, buddy?” Dennis asks.

Mac fixes him with a thoroughly unimpressed gaze. “You’re in my trial room, dude.”

“Oh. Yeah.”  _ So much for avoiding awkwardness, _ Dennis thinks. More and more of Mac’s skin is being exposed, and eventually the shirt is off, and Dennis shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He can’t even look somewhere else. Fucking mirrors.

Mac doesn’t even have the decency to put on the new shirt before he takes off his pants. That’s what seals the deal for Dennis— he mutters some excuse about needing water, and then he leaves, holding his jacket so that it hides the front of his pants.  _ Fuck you, Mac! _ he wants to yell, but that would have too many implications, and if there’s anything that Dennis knows, it’s implications.

He spies a water fountain and makes a beeline to it, considering the possibility of just dumping a cup of cold water on his head. And then Mac steps out of the trial room, and all rational thought flies out the window, replaced with a desire to strangle the attendant or God or whoever put that  _ monstrosity _ in Mac’s field of vision. “Dear  _ God, _ Mac, what— what the hell is  _ that?” _

“Other than the best suit that’s ever existed?” Mac says, his smile far too wide for someone wearing a huge, bright red, tartan tie.

“No!” is the only word that Dennis can conceivably think of. “No, what— Mac, no!”

Mac’s smile stays on his face, and he gestures to himself. “Dude, it’s Irish! Like Paddy’s!”

“Mac, kilts are fucking  _ Scottish!” _ The world is falling down around Dennis’s shoulders. Whoever designed that tie deserves to become Satan’s fourth chew toy.

“What? Oh, the tie.”  _ How the hell do you forget that you’re wearing that  _ fucking  _ tie? _ “That’s close enough. And, I mean— the suit is great either way.”

Dennis wants to sob. “Wh— the  _ suit _ is not my fucking  _ issue _ here, Mac!” It’s actually a nice suit, colored a silky green that’s so dark it’s almost black. But when it’s paired with the tie, everything gets a thousand times worse. “My  _ issue _ is that  _ monstrosity _ that you’re calling a tie!” He can feel people’s stares on the two of them, and he doesn’t care. The tie is fucking hideous, and he’d rather die than have that worn at his wedding.

“Well, the tie isn’t that great. I was gonna get something else. But—”

Dennis is struck with a wave of relief so intense that it might sweep him off his feet. “Mac,” he says slowly, turning the name over in his mouth like he’s done so many times before,  _ “thank you.” _

Confusion is etched onto Mac’s face, and it takes all of Dennis’s willpower not to kiss it off.

Maybe he’s a little gay for Mac. Maybe that’s not as terrible as he’d thought it would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!


	7. Dennis's Bachelor Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> not so much his bachelor party, more the aftermath of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter describes vomiting pretty graphically so i'd recommend skipping it if you're sensitive to that sort of thing— it's not very plot heavy.

It is November 14th, and Dennis should be decorating or double-checking or doing anything other than puking up everything he’s ever eaten. The acrid smell of vomit wafts up from the toilet bowl, making his stomach lurch again. His knees still sting from when they hit the tile five minutes ago. An empty bottle of Jack Daniels sits on the counter, and the sight of it triggers another spate of retching.

As if he’s a mile away instead of twenty feet, he hears the front door open, bringing Mac’s humming drifting in. The door slams, and Mac says,  _ “shit,” _ and every single sound pierces through Dennis’s eardrums and straight into his brain. He groans. “Dennis?” Mac calls, his voice growing closer. “You good?”

Mac appears in the doorway, casting a shadow over the floor. “Oh, dude,” Mac says, walking over to stand next to Dennis. He sounds like he doesn’t know whether to laugh or to show compassion. Dennis wishes that he had the strength to flip Mac off. Instead, he heaves again, bile dripping from his lips. Mac’s hand comes to settle awkwardly on his back, with the same sort of ham-fisted gracelessness that he brings to everything. In this situation  _ (and this situation only, _ he tells himself sternly), it’s kind of endearing.

Another wave of nausea rocks him, and he forgets about anything other than the sensation of his empty stomach turning. “Fuck,” he groans.

Mac’s hand disappears from his back, and Dennis lets out a pitiful whimper. It’s pathetic and he would never have done it if he was sober, but when Mac says “I’m just getting you some Advil, dude,” Dennis can hear his stupidly genuine smile in his voice.

Dennis rolls away from the toilet, resting his back against the blessedly cool cabinets, and he raises a pale hand to flush. He deliberately casts his eyes away from the swirling water and the empty bottle, which leaves him with only the floor and the ceiling to look at, and the ceiling is far too brightly lit for his taste. The floor isn’t much better— the grout between the tiles is a disgusting color, like puke. Dennis closes his eyes and rests his head on his knees, listening to the sounds of Mac rustling around in the kitchen.

He should probably tell Mac to check on Dee at some point, make sure she hasn’t choked on her own vomit. Some fucking bachelor party.

Mac returns, and Dennis slowly opens his eyes and takes the proffered pills and water. He swallows them, hoping that the medicine doesn’t burn through his empty stomach or something, and he takes another sip of water.

“Bro, the only reason I brought a whole glass is because you need to drink the whole glass,” Mac says. “It’s, like, basic science. You need water.”

“From the man who doesn’t believe in evolution,” Dennis rasps. He drinks it anyways, sipping it slowly under Mac’s watchful stare. It  _ does _ help, and he doesn’t sound like a reanimated corpse when he says, “How’s Dee?”

“She’s fine, I checked on her when I got in. She’s passed out on the couch. Some bachelor party, huh?” Mac asks, taking a seat on the floor next to Dennis.

Mac is warm, and he’s grinning, like  _ everything will be fine in the end, Dennis, you just need some meds and Gatorade and rest _ (it’s pretty fucking rich, when Mac isn’t hungover whatsoever), and Dennis closes his eyes and dares to let his head drop onto Mac’s shoulder. Mac doesn’t say anything. Dennis takes it as a good sign. “Yeah, if you could call it a bachelor party,” Dennis says. “How was yours?”

“I mean, Charlie just wanted to play Nightcrawlers. It’s actually pretty fun, dude, we should try it sometime.”

Dennis is too exhausted to protest. There’s nobody here that he has to prove anything to, anyways. He nods a little, his hair undoubtedly getting even more mussed up as it rubs against Mac’s shirt. “Why aren’t you—

“Puking my guts out?” Mac asks. Dennis winces at the memory of five minutes ago, and when he opens his eyes, he can catch Mac smiling, almost sympathetically. “Charlie forgot to buy booze, so we had to make do with the beer they had on hand, ‘cause we didn’t really want to go all the way to Paddy’s.”

“Lucky,” Dennis replies. “Me an’ Dee just—” he makes the drinking sign with his hand— “all night long.”

Mac raises his eyebrows in the direction of the Jack Daniels. “And not just beer, then.”

“Nope.”

Mac chuckles and swings his (fucking  _ enormous) _ arm around Dennis’s shoulder, pulling him close, making Dennis’s heart do a strange flutter, like that of a dying bird. “Some bachelor party.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ty for reading!


	8. The Wedding Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> featuring dennis "bastard man" reynolds!  
also thanks to mary elizabeth ellis for making her instagram username meellis so i could think "MELISSA"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for brief mentions of vomit and disordered thoughts

Dennis still has a headache from yesterday. It’s a painful reminder of his advancing age, and he pokes his cheeks, feeling the hollow where there used to be rosy flesh, examining his wrinkles.

He’s still a catch, of course. Otherwise, Mac wouldn’t be marrying him. He might just be less of a catch than when he was twenty-five, that’s all.

Goddamnit.

He adjusts his tie, even though it’s completely straight, and then he fiddles with it again. Something hits his back, and he whips his head around to see Dee in the doorway to the back office. She’s thrown a fucking _ pencil _ at him. _ “What,” _ he snarls.

“I’m _ checking on you, _ asshole. Leave the tie. It’s fine.” Dee takes a step towards him, hesitantly, like she’s not sure if this should be happening. Dennis isn’t sure either. “Well. Good luck.”

Dennis can _ feel _ the anger and frustration and confusion that’s been building since yesterday, since Mac sat with him on the grimy bathroom floor and— fuck, Mac _ held him, _ that’s really the only way to describe it— it all threatens to bubble over. “Good luck? _ Good luck? _ That’s all you have to say? I’m getting _ gay married, _ Deandra, not doing some shitty comedy set—”

Dee takes another step towards him and awkwardly wraps her bony arms around him, and Dennis shuts his mouth. “Dennis,” Dee says, her voice blotting out all other sound, “shut up for a second, yeah?”

Dennis brings his arms up to hug his sister back, and they may be standing like two robots who were programmed to imitate humans badly, but it’s actually _ nice. _ He hasn’t hugged his sister in God knows how long, and the knot of tension that’s been growing since the bathroom incident loosens.

“You better not be wrinkling my jacket,” Dennis mutters, for lack of anything else to say— anything else, like _ thank you _ or _ love you _ or _ what am I doing. _

Dee squeezes tight, and for a second, it’s like they’re a normal family who have always known how to show affection and trust each other, instead of two codependent freaks who are just learning.

They say an old dog can’t learn new tricks, but when Dennis releases his sister, he says it. “Thank you. That— you know.”

“I’m— y’know, here for you, asshat,” Dee says, twisting the rings around her fingers.

“Yeah.” Dennis looks down and fiddles with his cuffs. “So, who’s here?”

“Actually, a lot more people than I thought. Pretty much everyone that you invited showed up. I figured that they’d all, y’know, RSVP and then not come, because we’ve got a lot of beefs.”

“Yeah, we do,” Dennis agrees.

“Even _ Cricket _ showed up. Although that might just be for the free food. But there’s at _ least _ twenty people out there. Now that I’m thinking about it, the free food might explain everyone, but still. Twenty people. And not a McPoyle in sight.”

Twenty people. Twenty people that they haven’t managed to drive away completely. He’s not sure whether that’s good or bad, and for what reasons. But there are twenty people outside, here to see a fake wedding, and Dennis is going to deliver. “Wow. Uh…”

“Yeah. And, uh… I brought the Waitress as my date.” Dee is grimace-grinning like it’s big news. “So…”

“So what?”

Her face twists, and Dennis knows that the moment is over. It leaves him feeling a little empty— and the emptiness is immediately filled by anger, as Dee whisper-shrieks, “Are you shitting me? I need you to help keep it secret from Charlie! He’ll be crushed if he finds out!”

“Ohh,” Dennis says. That makes sense. “What do you even want me to _ do?” _

“I feel like you’re not seeing how big of a deal this is,” Dee says.

“‘Cause it’s not? I mean, if anyone is the subject of a big deal, it’s me! Dee, I’m getting _ married!” _

“Fake married!” Dee hisses. “Whereas _ my _ relationship is a _ real _ relationship, and it will very negatively affect the whole group dynamic if Charlie finds out!”

“Huh. You might be right.”

“Wh— of course I’m right! I’m the one dating Mel in the first place!”

“Who the hell is _ Mel?” _

“Mel! Melissa!”

“Huh?”

Dee rolls her eyes, and it’s the biggest goddamn _ production _ that Dennis has ever seen. “The _ Waitress, _ dipshit!”

“Well, how was I supposed to know that?” Dennis asks.

Dee’s eyes bug out. “Because I fucking _ told you!” _

“Hey, I’m the one who should be freaking out right now! Freak out after this is done!”

“Oh my God. Oh my _ God. _ Fine, you selfish dickwad.”

“Sel— if anything, _ you’re _ being selfish!”

“Jesus fucking— oh my God, get out.”

“This is my dressing room!”

“Get _ out! _ Or so help me God, I will stab you to death with a letter opener!”

Dennis thinks about arguing, and then he thinks better of it. He still has a scar on his leg from when he pissed Dee off as they were sorting Frank’s mail for him. “Jesus Christ, Dee.”

He throws the door open, suddenly so much happier that Mac had insisted on having a curtain separating the main part of the bar from the stairs and the office and everything for the wedding. _ “It looks classier, Dennis,” _ Mac had said. Dennis had argued that Mac was getting ready downstairs, not in the office, and it shouldn’t matter anyways, and then Mac had replied with _ “C’mon, Den,” _ and Dennis had relented. Goddamn nickname. Goddamn Mac. This whole fucking thing was his fault anyways. It’s Mac’s fault that Dennis is starting to crack, to let any feelings other than rage out from inside him. Stupid fucking Mac. Even as Dennis thinks it, he remembers Mac smiling, and he feels some regret. Like he’s a fucking kid again.

The chef is behind the curtain, and Dennis is seized with the urge to do _ something, _ anything, to get back at Mac (and, by extension, the memory of Mac’s smile that’s stuck in his head). If Mac hadn’t been so enthusiastic about the engagement scheme, then their lives would’ve gone on like normal, stuck in tiny cycles that always leave them back where they started. Dennis _ wants _ to go back to where they started. He wishes he’d never left there in the first place.

The chef. The chef is there, and he’s gay, and he’s standing just a few feet away, so Dennis doesn’t have time to think it through. “Hey, handsome,” Dennis calls, plastering a smile on his face. The small part of him that Dee’s idiot therapist would call a conscience is wondering, _ how is this getting back at Mac when you’re the only one feeling shitty? Mac doesn’t even like you. At best, he’s physically attracted. Mac isn’t even _ here. _ You’re just being stupid. _

Dennis buries the voice under six different layers of anger.

The chef looks behind him, as if he’s wondering who Dennis is talking to, and Dennis walks up to him and lays a hand on his arm. “So. What’s the deal with the food?”

“The— food?” the chef says, unable to look away from Dennis’s stare. “The food, for your wedding, that’s happening in ten minutes?”

Dennis laughs, and the sound comes out completely hollow. He pats the chef’s arm and leans in a little, smelling his cologne. It’s some subtler version of Drakkar Noir— not quite right, but he’ll manage. “You know, I—”

“I’m married,” the chef says. “And you’re getting married. In ten minutes, may I remind you.”

“Ten minutes is a lot of time,” Dennis purrs.

And of course, because Charlie has zero sense of timing, he chooses that moment to throw the door to the basement open. “Okay, so— whaaat’s going on here?”

“Nothing,” the chef says, yanking his arm back.

Dennis turns and glares at Charlie. “What _ is _ it, Charlie?”

“Mac wants to know—” Dennis tunes the rest of it out, vomit churning in his stomach, even though he hasn’t eaten since lunch yesterday, so he could look his best in the photos. _ Mac. There might be feelings there, but you are _ not _ regretting hitting on this guy, _ he tells himself. And maybe Charlie’s horrible sense of timing is rubbing off on him, because for once, he can’t delude himself. “—so what are your thoughts on that?” Charlie finishes.

“Sorry, what?” Dennis replies. It feels like somebody took a melon baller and scraped out his insides, like he’s going to collapse on himself any second. Like a dying star.

“He wants to know if he should wear the dark grey tie or the darker grey tie,” Charlie says, sounding impatient.

“Darker grey. I told him that a week ago,” Dennis says. The darker grey makes the green pop, makes Mac’s tan skin look even better, makes his cheekbones stand out, makes his grin positively sparkle.

“Yeah, but you weren’t paying attention, so I was testing you.”

Dennis squints. Charlie’s logic is the most fucked-up shit sometimes. “So— what did Mac _ actually _ want to know?”

Charlie sighs, impatiently, like he has any right to be impatient. “He wants to know if you’re good, if you’re ready to do this.”

Time slows down, and it’s like somebody’s slapped him in the face. He wants to recoil, he wants to sprint out of the bar, he wants to flee the country.

This is a sham marriage, and Mac wants to know if there’s any way out.

Dennis has failed.

He’s spent the past twenty years trying to draw Mac closer, drawing up convoluted plots and elaborate schemes and twisted lies to achieve that end, and it’s all failed. The second that the divorce is finalized, Mac is going to leave, because a fake marriage to Dennis has pushed him over the edge. None of this is Mac’s fault. It’s all on Dennis.

“Hey, man, you good?” Charlie is saying, his voice warped and distorted. “Dennis? De—”

The world snaps back into focus. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Dennis says, straightening up. When did he double over? _ It doesn’t matter, _ Dennis thinks. _ Salvage it. Save this. Keep Mac. _ “Tell Mac that I’m ready to go, and he better be too.” He laughs, loud and long and fake, and Charlie furrows his eyebrows but says nothing, electing to disappear into the basement. Dennis turns to the chef and claps his hands together. “Okay!”

They have a real live Catholic priest perform the ceremony. Most of the words that come out of the priest’s mouth are replaced with a flat buzz as soon as they enter Dennis’s head, and the only words that actually get through are _ God, Mac, Dennis, _ and _ vows. _

_ Shit. _ Dennis’s heart rate spikes, even though he knows his vows by heart, has known them for weeks. His mouth is completely dry.

He stares at Mac, and he can’t decipher anything written on Mac’s face. And then the goddamn psychology professor’s lecture on love and hate and anger and fear resurfaces in his mind, and he opens his mouth and speaks. All he can see is Mac, and with a numb sort of finality, he realizes that this is his last chance to make Mac change his mind about being with Dennis.

“When I was at Penn, I had a professor who taught us that love and hate, anger and fear, all the strong emotions— they’re actually closer related than we think. I think that I— I need to learn the differences between them a little better, and I think that Mac has both taught me about those differences and unconsciously obscured them, all at the same time, better than any stupid professor could,” Dennis says, the words spilling out of his mouth before he can stop them. Mac grins at him, and even without looking, Dennis knows that Mac is concealing a thumbs-up in his clasped hands. If this whole thing goes south— and that option is looking more and more likely— then who, pray tell, is Dennis ever going to be able to know this well? Who is Dennis ever going to _ want _ to know this well? The thought of knowing anyone even half as well as he knows Mac revolts him. He swallows, and he continues, finally starting on the vows that _ aren’t _ spur-of-the-moment. “Mac, we’ve known each other since we were idiot kids tearing up the streets of Philly, and while we’ve stayed the same in most ways, we’ve changed a lot, too. But I got to experience that change with you, and, I mean— I couldn’t have asked for someone better to accompany me. And now, I mean, we’re bonded, legally, for life.” _ Please stay, _ Dennis wants to say. Mac can usually read him— not his thoughts, but his emotions. And right now, Dennis is pretty sure that he’s feeling the big one, and this time, it really _ is _ Mac’s fault. But Mac’s face is still inscrutable. “So what I’m trying to say is— well, thank you for sticking with me.” He takes a deep breath, and then he says it. “I love you.”

Dennis honestly thought that there would be a weight lifting off his chest, or that he’d feel miraculously freed, or anything big and flashy and dramatic, really. He means everything that he’s said, really means it, and all he feels is apprehension.

_ “Did you ever know, that you’re my hero? ‘Cause you’re the wind beneath my wings.” _

Mac’s eyes widen, making all his features soften. Dennis misses the days when he could just reach out and hold Mac’s face in his hands and Mac would be soft and warm and doe-eyed, misses them like he would miss a limb.

Mac takes a breath, and Dennis’s heart rate goes up again. “Dennis, you know, we’ve said a lot of shit and done a lot of shit and we’ve meant a lot of it, too, but there’s nobody I’d rather have by my side, bro. We share something, and it’s _ special, _ dude. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I think the reason that we can be absolute douches to each other is because we know we’ll forgive each other in the end, and I really appreciate you for giving me that certainty. I mean, we’ve gone through so much— like, our fucking _ apartment _ burned down, and we’re still here, right? And I appreciate that you came back from North Dakota, and I appreciate _ you, _ and I love you too, man.”

_ I shouldn’t have gone to North Dakota in the first place! Don’t fucking _ appreciate _ me for coming back! _ Dennis wants to scream.

He also wants to ask why Mac used platonic terms of endearment three _ fucking _ times in his speech, but he knows why. The Titanic of Dennis’s feelings has sunk, and it would be useless and stupid and pathetic to try and raise it.

“You may kiss the groom,” the priest says, and then Mac is leaning towards him and it’s even more torturous than the first time they kissed, because this is the _ last _ time that they’ll kiss, and this has to be _ real, _ or the chef won’t believe them. So Dennis slings an arm around Mac’s neck, pulling him closer as Mac’s tongue slips along Dennis’s bottom lip. Dennis drinks in everything he can: the softness of Mac’s lips; the way Mac’s stubble feels against his cheeks; the scent (the _ right _ scent) of Drakkar Noir clinging to Mac; the way Mac’s tongue darts briefly into Dennis’s mouth, as if he’s doing an ocular patdown except with kissing; the way Mac is holding him, one hand on his waist and one hand on the back of his neck. Dennis sears it all into his brain, wondering what he’ll do if he forgets even a millisecond of this. When they pull back from each other, Dennis’s vision is the tiniest bit blurred.

The free food tastes like sawdust in his mouth. He wishes that he’d never thought of the fake proposal in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! i made an iasip tumblr @glundergun so yall should follow :))


	9. Dee and Dennis Have a Heart-to-Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the golden geese go to the gin bar (and i have a field day with alliteration).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is p light, just your standard sunny-sanctioned alcohol abuse :)))))))) (smiling to hide the pain)

After a few hours, Dennis and Mac leave the reception. Mac crashes almost immediately, and Dennis calls Dee and tells her to meet him at the gin bar. While he waits for her, he pounds four shots, and the second she takes a seat at the table, his lower lip quivers. She sighs like she didn’t just get a shitload of free food. “What.”

He just sniffles. It’s a little pathetic, but he’s living a pathetic lifestyle now. In love with his best friend who doesn’t love him back— it’s the plot of every shitty 80s movie ever made.

“Mac, I’m guessing.”

He nods, nursing his fifth shot. She reaches across the table and takes it from him, downing it and wincing. “Bitch,” he says, his voice quivering.

“You’re drunk. I’m doing you a favor.”

“So’re you, though.”

“Shut up, asshole. I was going to get  _ laid _ tonight, you know that?”

Dennis wrinkles his nose at her.

“So you don’t even want to know what Charlie said about Mel and I?”

“Who? Oh, the Waitress.” Dee looks ready to launch into a tirade, and Dennis rolls his eyes at her. “You didn’t tell him, and he’s not at all observant.”

Dee, somewhat mollified, sighs again. “Yeah. But still, we were, like, about to get it on, and then you call with your—  _ gay crisis, _ or whatever.”

He would protest, but he is very tired and very drunk, so he just nods pathetically. “Dee, he said  _ bro—” _

“And  _ man, _ and  _ dude, _ yeah, I was there,” Dee says impatiently. “What does that have to do with me?”

Dennis stares at her, torn between incredulity and hurt. “You— just a few hours ago, you said you were ‘here for me’ or whatever.”

“I did say that, didn’t I?” Dee muses. Her face softens a little, her scowl morphing into a quasi-sympathetic frown. “Well. What is it.” She says it flat and annoyed, like she’s got something better to do, like she isn’t a college dropout with fifty cents to her name. Bitch.

“I’m— I meant it. The vows, or whatever,” Dennis says. He looks down at his hands and wonders if it’s too late to go back to North Dakota. Maybe if he gets on a plane right now, he can outrun this, he can get away from the feelings in his chest before they grow too big and crush him.

“Yeah, and?”

“Wh— the fuck do you mean,  _ and?” _

“Uh… what do  _ you _ mean?”

“I mean I basically bared my soul and now Mac isn’t— y’know! He’s obviously stopped feeling whatever  _ he _ felt, and now  _ I _ figured whatever it was out, and I was too late!”

Dee’s eyes widen, and then she starts to laugh.

“Dee, you— why the fuck are you  _ laughing, _ you bitch? I’m—”

“—an  _ idiot, _ is what you are!” She’s full-on wheezing now.

“You have five seconds to explain what’s happening or I’ll break a glass over your head.”

She doesn’t stop giggling, but she says, “I thought you were having some fight with him over something stupid, like who tops, or the fact that he said shit like  _ ‘bro’ _ every five seconds in the vows! I didn’t know you hadn’t  _ figured your shit out yet!” _ And then she dissolves into laughter again. God, Dennis hates her.

“What the hell do you mean? He obviously didn’t mean any of it, Dee, you blind bitch!”

“Oh, you— you really are an idiot, aren’t you!”

“Deandra, I swear—”

“Unclench, Jesus! God! I can’t believe—”

Dennis stands, slamming his palms on the table and glaring at his sister. “Cut,” he growls, “to the  _ fucking _ chase.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re high-strung. Mac meant, like,  _ everything, _ dumbass.”

It might’ve been better if she had just slapped him in the face. “What? No. He didn’t— he doesn’t—”

“Dude, it was  _ so painfully obvious. _ Like.  _ Painful.” _

“He’s not— no. I mean, that would be…”  _ Fantastic. Stupid. Wildly improbable. _

“Okay, you have this thing where you want everything to stay the way it is, but that shit is what’s got you running a bar in your 40s with not a stable relationship in sight. Well, maybe the stable relationship thing is because you’re incredibly gay for your best friend—”

“Not  _ incredibly _ gay,” Dennis mutters, feeling like the table would believe him more than Dee does.

She stares at him, like  _ he’s _ the stupid one, and then she barrels into a lecture so fast-paced and insistent that Dennis gets whiplash. “Even  _ Mac’s _ come out, dude. The whole  _ repression _ thing— I can’t deal with another twenty years of it from  _ you _ now. So. The refusal to change, that’s fucking up a lot of stuff for you. You’re refusing to believe that he’s gay for you, too, because you don’t want change. You keep that goddamn makeup on 24/7 because you don’t want change. You fuck your way through Philly like you’re twenty-five because you don’t want change, and I shudder to think about how many STDs you have. It’s moronic, and you need to just go home and tell Mac you’re in love with him, or whatever you need to do. And if you want to fuck, don’t do it in the bar.”

He wants to protest, but he knows she’s right. He’d rather die than admit it. “I’m sure you’ve fucked the Waitress plenty of times at the bar.”

“Holy— well, I’m not the one who forced the rest of us to deal with twenty-five years of gay pining!”

“Potato, po… repression.”

“That was horrible.” Her expression slides into a dopey smile, and for a second he worries if she’s crossfaded, but then she laughs at him and all concern is replaced by irritation.

_ “What,” _ he snaps.

“You’re in love with a dude named  _ Ronald McDonald,” _ she replies, laughing.

He gets up and slaps a wad of cash down on the table. Dee may have been the  _ tiniest _ bit helpful, but in the end she’s too much of a bitch to handle for more than fifteen minutes at a time. He stumbles out of the gin bar and flags down a cab, and he prays to God that she’s right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!


	10. Mac and Dennis Plan a Honeymoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mac is still awake when dennis gets back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for brief mention of past r*pe/parental abuse (no incest)

By the time Dennis gets home (almost an hour later, thanks to Philly traffic), he’s ready to pass out. He closes the door softly behind him— the caution is of no use, because when he turns around, Mac is sitting up on the couch. Dennis practically jumps out of his skin. “Hey, dude,” Mac says.

“Jesus  _ fucking _ Christ,” Dennis hisses. “I thought you were asleep!”

“I mean, I was, but you kinda slammed the door when you left, so…” Mac shrugs, and Dennis winces a little. Mac grabs a sheaf of papers off the coffee table. “I went and got the divorce paperwork while you were gone.”

Dread starts to swirl in his stomach, mixing with the gin in a way that isn’t at all pleasant.  _ Shit. Shit, shit, shit. _ “You what?” Dennis croaks, hating himself as soon as the words— desperate, needy, pathetic words— leave his mouth.

Mac shifts a little, breaking eye contact. “Well, I figured— you seemed pretty eager to, y’know. Get out of the house, and all, and I kinda want shit to go back to normal as soon as possible.”

“Wait,” Dennis says, the word bursting out from his mouth before he has the chance to think. Mac looks up at him, eyebrows raised like he’s hoping for something. God, Mac always  _ hopes, _ and it’s fucking stupid. When have they ever gotten what they hope for? “We should have champagne.” He hears it come out of his mouth, wooden and robotic, and wishes that he hadn’t slammed the damn door when he left. Maybe he could’ve even slipped into Mac’s bed, pressed himself to Mac’s body like he had when they were twenty and the memories of Ms. Klinsky’s long red nails and Dennis’s hands methodically cleaning the shards of a broken glass sculpture from Dee’s arm and Mac’s mom stubbing out cigarettes on Mac’s hand to shut him up and Mac’s dad hollering loud enough to pierce eardrums would all come back to attack them, not yet dulled enough by the passage of time. “To celebrate. The scheme.”

Mac looks skeptical. “I guess. Yeah, I snuck a few bottles from the bar. I’ll go, uh, go get ‘em. You want anything else?”

Dennis shakes his head, and Mac walks off into the kitchen. Dennis sits on the couch and picks up the papers. The sight of them makes him sick to his stomach. Looking into the kitchen is no good either, because that goddamn orange pill container is sitting out in the open for God and everyone to see, drawing Dennis’s focus from anything else.  _ Fuck. _

Mac returns with two plastic champagne flutes and an unopened bottle. When he pops the cork, foam flows everywhere. “Ah, shit.”

“You’re a  _ professional bartender,” _ Dennis reminds him, making no move to help.

Mac glares at him, attempting to clean up the mess with the Chinese takeout napkins on the coffee table. “Whatever,” he says, throwing the sodden mess down. “We’ll clean it in the morning.”

Dennis thinks of the ants that will undoubtedly gather if they  _ don’t _ clean it up in the morning, which is incredibly likely, and then he looks at Mac, who has somehow managed to inject earnestness into the act of pouring drinks. He’s too tired to insist on Mac cleaning up properly, anyway. Mac hands a glass to Dennis, his smile a little nervous, as if he’s waiting for Dennis to scratch him again. “To a successful scheme.”

“To a successful scheme,” Dennis replies, clinking his glass against Mac’s. The silence curdles into something incredibly awkward within five seconds.

“‘S good champagne,” Mac says. Dennis nods. The heaviness behind his eyelids grows, and the silence rages on.

“Y’know what we should do?” Dennis asks, and then, because he hates himself and the exhaustion has lowered his inhibitions, he says, “Plan a fake honeymoon.”

“Like, a what-if sorta thing?” Mac asks.

“Yeah, like, if this all—” Dennis gestures with the champagne flute, wondering what it would take to shut himself up— “was real, if we were  _ actually _ gay for each other.” And then, because he hasn’t fucked this up enough, he laughs, loud and cheery and so obviously fake.  _ God, _ why hadn’t he just said he was tired? It would’ve been true, and he would’ve escaped this entire situation.

Mac laughs too, uncertainty lacing the edges. “So, if we  _ were _ gay for each other, where would we go for our honeymoon?” His eyebrows go up. “Ooh, what about Switzerland? Like, for skiing?”

“No, that’d be too far,” Dennis says, “the only hypothetical change in this situation is that we’re gay for each other. Not that we’re rich.”

“Ooh, you’re right,” Mac says, pursing his lips. “Oh! Colorado! That’s, like, basically Switzerland.”

“Yeah, and we would stay in, like, a five-star resort,” Dennis says, his eyelids sliding closed a little. “With, like, unlimited drinks.”

“Ooh, and we would get massages, like, every day!”

“And we could do seaweed wraps,” Dennis says, yawning. “Lotta seaweed wraps.”

“We could do tennis, too. You like tennis,” Mac says. Dennis wonders if Mac knows how calming his voice is, even though it’s always filled with that nervous tension. “Although we’d have to do indoor courts.”

“Yeah,” Dennis says. “Yeah, yeah, could you pass me the—” he’s interrupted by a yawn, long and vicious, and he thinks he might’ve caught Mac staring but he can’t bring  _ that _ up right now and anyways, the yawning has made his vision blur over, so who really knows— “that blanket?”

Mac chucks it at his face. “Here, bitch. I can’t believe you’re falling asleep on me.”

“‘M— ‘m not. And you’re the bitch.” Dennis can’t possibly keep his eyes open any longer. “Bitch.”

He thinks he hears Mac snort, and then he slides into the welcoming clutches of sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!


	11. Mac and Dennis Don’t Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Morning After: Part One

Dennis wakes up the next morning with the blanket carefully tucked around his shoulders. A glass of water sits on the coffee table, right on top of the divorce papers, and Mac, the bitch, has moved the pill bottle three inches to the left, so it would be even more obvious. Passive-aggressive bastard.

In high school, he’d taken Mac and the Range Rover and fucked off to the Poconos for a week, using Frank’s platinum cards to buy all the booze and cigarettes the two of them could carry. Dee had called once, Charlie yelling occasionally in the background, demanding to know where the hell all her weed had gone, and then it was radio silence from Philly for the rest of the week.  _ “Fuck them,” _ Dennis had said, full of a fiery conviction that belied his shaking rage at the rest of the world. Mac hadn’t looked so sure, but he had rolled a joint anyway, lit it up and let the smoke curl around his face until his uncertain expression was barely visible, and they’d passed it back and forth until it was down to embers and they were laughing at the slightest sounds. Dennis wonders, idly, if seventeen-year-old him had imagined that Mac would still be by his side, twenty-five years down the line. Wanted it, maybe. Believed it, maybe not.

He’s gotta talk to Mac about their situation today. He’ll have to confess, and it’ll be a big, blubbery, gay affair, because Mac is big and blubbery and gay. And Dennis might also be gay, which is, in itself, weird enough, but coupled with the fact that he’s gay for  _ Mac— _ that’s, like, a whole new plane of weirdness.

Maybe seventeen-year-old him was gay for Mac, too. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t disappeared into the wilderness and left Frank and Mom forever.

Or maybe Dee is full of shit, and Mac really  _ has _ moved on, and then Dennis will have made a fool of himself. Maybe—

“Dude, get up! We’re gonna be late,” Mac yells from the bathroom.

“Since when do you care?” Dennis hollers back, voice grainy. He reaches out for the water and gulps it down, and then he sits up, letting the blanket fall off his shoulders. He has a  _ routine— _ a morning routine that needs to be followed or else he’ll look terrible, especially since he neglected his nightly routine yesterday— but he can’t really seem to care that much. Not with papers and pills and God knows what else staring him in the face.

The sound of footsteps breaks through the haze surrounding Dennis, and he looks up to find Mac looming over him. “Dude, you look like shit,” Mac says.

“Yeah, like you look any better,” Dennis replies. It’s very much untrue, because Mac’s not the one who drank at the wedding and then did shitty gin shots and then came home and drank more, and even if he was, he’d probably look at least semi-decent, because he’s annoying like that. Dennis can’t even muster up enough venom to make Mac look offended, and that’s one of the easiest goddamn things on God’s green earth. Christ.

“Whatever, dude.” Mac squints at Dennis, that intense stare that makes Dennis’s skin prickle and his neck flush, and before Dennis can snap at him, Mac says, “You know what? Let’s just skip work today.”

“What?”

“Seriously. Let’s grab some booze, hit Fairmount, and get wasted.”

It’s a tantalizing plan. “Why?”

Mac glares, like he’s trying to either read Dennis’s mind or burn a hole in his head. “Why  _ not?” _

Dennis keeps quiet. It’s the easiest way to get Mac to talk more, and it succeeds. “You really do look like shit, dude, and we deserve it. It’s our fake honeymoon, for Chrissakes.”

Dennis’s stomach flips, but he can’t deny Mac’s logic. “Fine.”

“Well, if it’s a fucking  _ chore—” _

And there’s the Mac he knows, fists up and ready to duke it out over a parking space. Except Dennis isn’t up for a fight, really, which is getting more and more common and more and more worrying. “It’s not a chore, dude, I’m just—” He pauses for a moment, trying to find the right words, ones that don’t make him sound like the most pathetic creature to ever inhabit the earth, before Mac cuts across, all the fight in his eyes replaced with a strange, deep compassion.

“Yeah, I know. C’mon, dude, let’s get our drinks and go before all the fucking  _ jogging clubs _ hit.”


	12. Mac and Dennis Climb the Shaft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> our favorite bastards take a cue from charlie and make their way to the vents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for disordered thoughts

“You can’t just— fucking  _ steal _ our booze and then disappear!” Dee yells. “We still have to clean the bar, since fucking  _ Bill Ponderosa _ can’t hold his coke!”

“It’s  _ our _ fake gay wedding! Why should we have to clean it up?” Mac yells back.

“Well, Frank and I had a  _ real _ gay wedding, and none of  _ you _ helped us clean!” Charlie shrieks.

“Because you didn’t have an actual  _ wedding! _ You just signed some paper!” Dennis yells. “That doesn’t count! Why the hell would we have cleaned?”

“Oh, it was absolutely a real wedding! We were married, weren’t we?”

“For a completely bullshit reason!” Mac bellows.

“Are you shittin’ me? You guys got gay married for free food! At least Charlie an’ I got married to scam the government!” Frank replies.

“Holy shit, this isn’t about you!” Dennis yells. A dense, compact grenade of fury is rattling around in his ribcage, the only thing present and accounted for in there, and if he has to stay with these assholes for another sixty seconds, it’s going to explode. “Just give us the fucking booze!”

“Help us clean, and  _ then  _ we’ll see!” Dee snaps, a pitiful attempt at negotiation.

Mac slams his palms on the bar. “We’ll  _ see _ you in  _ hell—” _

The beginnings of a plan form in Dennis’s mind, and the grenade— well, it’s not gone, not even close, but the pin goes back in. He takes a steadying breath. “Hold on, Mac,” he says. “What do we have to lose? We’ll do it.”

“Wh—”

“Okay, well, then you two boners can start with the basement,” Dee says, a smug look on her face. The  _ basement _ is a wrench in the plan, but Dee isn’t smart enough to know what he’s up to, so it’s not something they can’t work around.

“Fine,” Dennis replies. “C’mon, Mac, let’s go.”

Dennis catches Mac by the arm and drags him down the stairs. Charlie shuts the door behind them, the sound embedded with a spine-chilling finality, and then something on the other side of the door clicks. “What?” Mac cries, yanking on the door. “No, no, no!”

“Are you shitting me?” Dennis hisses. “Are you fucking— they  _ locked us down here, _ and it should be our  _ honeymoon— _ oh, Jesus Christ, I hope Charlie opened the vents. Are you feeling lightheaded? I think I’m feeling a little lightheaded. Oh my God, we’re going to get carbon monoxide poisoning—”

Mac vaults over the stair railing. “They’re open. We’re not gonna die of monocarbon monoxide poisoning or whatever.”

The feeling of relief disappears as soon as it had come. _ “Carbon  _ monoxide, not  _ monocarbon— _ okay, whatever. Still doesn’t change the fact that we’re  _ trapped _ in the fucking  _ basement. _ We were gonna sneak out and go to Fairmount and— what the  _ fuck _ are you fucking  _ smiling _ about, Mac?”

Mac’s grin is a sight wholly uncalled for, given the fact that they’re  _ trapped in the basement— _ seriously, is Dennis the only one understanding this? “That we are, Dennis. And I don’t think they’re going to let us out anytime soon, right?”

Dennis’s heart skips a beat. “Mac, what in the hell are you getting at?”  _ Please don’t say you want to fuck in a disgustingly trashed basement. _ Although he wouldn’t be fully opposed. Mac would just have to convince him.

“I’m getting at  _ beer, _ dude,” Mac says, grinning wider, and suddenly Dennis isn’t sure if he’s disappointed or relieved. “I mean, if Charlie can store beer in the vents, why can’t I?” Mac walks over to one of the vents and kicks the grate in. “And if Charlie can pop out of the vents wherever he wants,  _ why can’t we?” _

Despite himself, Dennis feels the beginning of a smile make its way onto his face. The grenade in his chest suddenly disappears, leaving him slightly hollow. “That’s— not bad, Mac. Not bad at all.”

Mac preens, like Dennis knew he would, and on any other person, it would be pathetic. “C’mon, dude, let’s get out of here. We’re losing sun.”

They squeeze into the vents, Mac pushing the beers ahead of him with Dennis following behind, and after a few twists and turns, Mac stops. “What’s this about?” Dennis asks warily.

“We gotta climb the shaft, dude,” Mac replies, and  _ God, _ does he never hear the words that come out of his mouth? “How else did you think we were gonna get to the roof?”

“I dunno! Maybe it could’ve been a smooth ascent, goddamnit!” Dennis yells.

“A— that would make  _ no _ sense, dude,” Mac says. “Like, that would be  _ such _ a waste of duct.”

“A waste of duct,” Dennis repeats. “A waste of goddamn—”

“You really need to lower your voice, dude,” Mac tells him. “They’ll hear us.”

Dennis takes a breath, pinching his nose. “Goddamnit. Fine. But you’re carrying the beers to the park.”

Mac has already started climbing, because he’s a bitch like that. The  _ thuds _ his feet make as he spider-climbs up the wall make the whole duct shake, and the noise reverberates in Dennis’s ears. It stops after a moment, and then Mac calls down, “Pass me the beers, dude.”

Dennis shimmies forward and grabs the beers before awkwardly maneuvering himself into an upright position, just barely managing to lift the two six-packs over his head. If he was skinnier, this would be easier. He shouldn’t have eaten so much yesterday, he had lunch  _ and _ dinner  _ and _ a bunch of grain alcohol— goddamnit.

The beers are lifted from his hands, and then Dennis settles his clammy palms against the metal walls.  _ Three, two, one— _ he jumps, slamming his feet into the walls, and then he slides, all the way back down to the bottom.

“Need help?” Mac asks, completely sincere.

“Fuck you,” Dennis snarls.

“Whoa, dude, no need to jump—”

“What the hell happened to you, man?” Dennis hisses—  _ oh, _ and maybe the grenade was never gone, maybe it just migrated, and now it’s exploding. “When did you become such a fucking pushover? Huh? You used to be up for anything—” he slams his feet into the walls again, tries to get some friction against the metal— “and you’d  _ always _ be ready to fight—” he slides down, tries again, his hands starting to sting— “and now you’re just a fucking  _ pussy—” _ he should stop, he should stop, he needs to stop— “who goes to fucking—  _ musical theater group—” _

And then there are two hands closing around his own, and Mac pulls him up from the shaft into the first floor ductwork with the same amount of effort it would take for Dennis to swat a fly, and Dennis’s arms are just about ripped out of their sockets. His stomach aches from sliding over the sharp bend in the metal, and he has nowhere to look except for Mac’s eyes. “Maybe,” Mac says, his voice dangerously low, “maybe I’m sick of fighting all the time. Huh? You ever think about that? Because obviously you’ve given this a lot of thought. Maybe I don’t  _ wanna _ be almost forty-five, screaming at my friends all day and screaming at the guy I love even more. Have you ever thought about  _ that, _ Dennis?” Mac pauses, ever so slightly, and Dennis realizes what’s coming. His stomach twists. “Or did you decide my  _ motivations _ for me, too? You couldn’t stop with my relationship with my dad?”

He  _ wishes _ that Mac had just shoved him, or punched him, or left him in the vent to die. Now it’s about the letters again— about the letters and the confession, wrapped up inside each other, as tightly as Mac and Dennis are, and the letters taint the confession and the confession beautifies the letters. Dennis isn’t stupid— he knows which one he’s doing, and he knows that Mac is never going to let it rest until Dennis apologizes (apologizes without the aid of a fucking  _ onion, _ without trying to fit some imaginary Hallmark scene into what they thought were the last few moments of their lives, a scene that they should know can’t possibly exist for them) or they die. “The letters.”

Mac’s eyelashes are a little clumped together. “Yeah, the goddamn letters, Dennis.”

_ He never said he loved you, _ Dennis wants to scream. “He wanted you to be a fucking  _ drug mule.” _ Maybe this is the time it’ll finally,  _ finally _ get through Mac’s thick skull that his parents are shitty, shitty parents, that he might  _ not _ be the only member of the gang whose fucked-up-ness is, in part, a result of terrible child-rearing.

But Mac is obstinate, and maybe Dennis loves that about him. “I’d rather be a drug mule,” he says, his voice still carrying that dangerous tone, “than a kid without a dad. And you took away my last chance at that, Den—” and of  _ course _ Mac just has to use that nickname— “when you destroyed them.”

He sniffles, and Dennis wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. Mac is being run ragged by his insistence on living up to what he never could be, and it’s the worst thing in the world to watch. “Mac,” Dennis says, “your parents don’t know  _ shit.” _

The fire is relit in Mac’s eyes, at least temporarily. “Don’t you talk shit about my—”

“Mac,” Dennis repeats. Mac shuts his mouth. His hands are still on Dennis’s wrists— Dennis could rip them away, if he wanted to, but for the time being, he wants to stay in this moment. This moment, where Mac might just be processing things, where Dennis can try and do some good (and it’s like surgery, isn’t it, where you have to cut at healthy flesh to get at the disease), where they’re kind of sort of technically holding hands. Dee was right— if you don’t scratch the ticket, you’re not technically a loser. Schrödinger would be jizzing in his pants at the thought of it. “Mac.”

“They  _ gotta _ know, Den,” Mac says. He sounds more like a scared ten-year-old than anything. “I mean— Jesus  _ Christ.” _

Mac doesn’t start crying, doesn’t even let out a sob, but his shoulders sag, like a weight has been placed onto them instead of taken off. He lets out a heavy exhale, and the breath tickles Dennis’s face. “For what it’s worth,” Dennis whispers, half-terrified that this will be another situation like the cruise ship, that Mac will snap back to his old self, that Dennis will have to endure another twenty-odd years of Mac raking his own goddamn self over the coals, “I really am sorry for— for hurting you, Mac. But, y’know, lesser—”

“Lesser of two evils,” Mac says with him, nodding a little. “Yeah.”

“So do you— are we—”

“Yeah, I get why, Dennis, just— I mean—”

“Yeah.”

“You know.” And Dennis  _ does, _ and that’s the miracle of it— he’s known Mac for so long that he recognizes every thought pattern that goes through Mac’s mind, and it’s not always great to know how Mac thinks (it’s almost never great), but Dennis really wouldn’t trade it for anything. Mac huffs, almost a laugh, yet the closest to a sob he’s gotten all day. “I get it.”

Dennis thinks that if he were a little more foolhardy, a little more reckless, if he couldn’t still see the shine to Mac’s eyes, he would lean forwards and kiss him. He doesn’t, but it’s a close thing. “You still wanna go to Fairmount and get shitfaced?” It’s a terrible segue, and he knows that they both know it, but he knows Mac understands, because he always does. Even if Dennis hates it, even if Dennis rants and screams and throws things, Mac understands, in his own roundabout way.

“Yeah, let’s—” Mac sniffles— “let’s get out of here.”

They don’t talk about the confession. It burns bright in Dennis’s chest, a fallen star that’s searing itself into his heart permanently, the most valuable thing that Dennis has ever owned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!


	13. Dennis's Big Something, Pt. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dennis is a little bitch

“Dee, I need to talk to you. Call me back.”  _ BEEP. _

“Dee, seriously, call me, bitch.”  _ BEEP. _

“Dee, I swear to God, call me or I’ll break your kneecaps.”  _ BEEP. _

“Deandra, I have, like, ten minutes until Mac comes back from his fucking  _ creatine shit, _ I need you to call me back.”  _ BEEP. _

“What in the hell could you be doing that’s more important than this, you goddamn bitch!”  _ BEEP. _

“Dee, I can’t call anyone else because Charlie can’t keep his fucking mouth shut and Frank tells Charlie everything and you’re the only other person left. Call me back.”  _ BEEP. _

“Dennis?”

“Is this the Waitress?” Dennis asks, pumping his fist in the air. One elderly parkgoer shoots him a strange look.  _ You’re gonna be dead in a few years anyway, what the hell do you know, asshole? _

“You still don’t know my name?” she asks.

“Uh… something with a  _ W?” _

“No, shithead.”

“Okay, whatever— is my sister there?”

_ “Yes, _ douchewad, I’m here, and I’m trying to get laid! Fuck off!”

“Don’t be gross. Look, I need to talk to you—”

“Kinda in the middle of something!” Dee yells.

“Ow, babe, my ears,” the Waitress says.

“Sorry, Mel.”  _ Mel! That’s it. _ “Dennis, I’ll call you back when I’m finished.” Before the line goes dead, he hears snickering.  _ Juveniles. _

Dee calls him back twelve minutes later, and Dennis’s to relief, Mac is still in the bathroom. Whoever cleans Fairmount’s restrooms is probably going to want to jump off a bridge, but that’s not Dennis’s concern. “Dee, you bitch—”

“Oh,  _ you’re _ one to talk. I finally finish cleaning, and when I go to the basement to check on you guys—”

“You don’t get the goddamn high horse, you locked us down there!”

“Shut up, there was, like, barely any carbon monoxide left,” Dee says. “And you two idiots skipped out anyways! I  _ knew _ I should’ve listened to Charlie when he said he heard shit in the vents, then we would’ve sealed them all up and left you to die in there!”

_ “Damn, _ Dee—”

“Oh, shut up. I was supposed to meet Mel at seven, and thanks to  _ you, _ I was three hours late— and why the hell are you calling me at midnight, anyways?”

“Be _ cause,” _ Dennis says petulantly, “I need your help.”

Dee snorts, and it comes through the line as a burst of static that makes Dennis wince. “Since when is that a surprise?”

“Don’t be a bitch. C’mon, I want to do something for Mac.”

He can’t see her, but he knows comprehension is dawning on her face. “Something  _ gay.” _

“Yes, something gay, why the hell do you care?”

“I mean, it’s gonna be pretty hard to live up to the RPG.”

“I feel like the RPG is kinda negated by the fact that he used it to blow up my car.”

“Nah, that was totally justified.”

“You—”

“Dennis, do you want my help or not?”

“At this point? Maybe not.”

“Oh, come  _ on!” _

“Jesus Christ, Dee, fine.”

“Okay, what were you thinking of doing?”

“I mean—” Dennis shifts uncomfortably on the cold metal of the park bench— “something big?”

Dee laughs, loud and incredulous. “You don’t—”

“Dee, I swear to God—”

“Okay. Where were you gonna do this  _ ‘something big?’” _ she asks. Dennis can  _ hear _ the air quotes, and he considers driving to the Waitress’s apartment and strangling his sister.

“The bar, obviously.”

“Well, that’s good. That’s a start, at least. You want people around, or no?”

“Jesus Christ, I don’t  _ care,” _ he snaps. He wanted  _ help, _ not a goddamn interrogation, and Mac is gonna be back any minute.

“Fine! Is it gonna be a speech, or—”

“What the hell else would it be, Dee?!”

“A fucking RPG! His dad! I don’t fucking know, dude, I try to stay as far away from your weird fucked-up relationship shit as I can!”

“And you still manage to stick your beak into—”

“Holy shit, Dennis, just— okay. So. It’s gonna be a speech. At the bar. What date?”

“Tomorrow?”

“To— okay,  _ how _ were you expecting to get everything set up by then?”

“There’s nothing  _ to _ set up! I’m just gonna— y’know, say my feelings and shit!”

“Ha! I thought you said this was gonna be  _ big!” _

“It  _ is!” _

“Hey, dude, who’re you talking to?” Mac asks, appearing from nowhere. Dennis jumps.

“Oh, y’know, Dee called, she’s having. Uh. Relationship troubles.”

“You  _ bitch, I’m _ not—”

“Bye, Dee!” Dennis calls, hanging up and turning to Mac. “Dude, you  _ reek _ of booze.”

“Yeah, I think that shit was less creatine and more vodka.” They both cast a glance towards the trash can a few yards away, which is stuffed full of glass bottles.

Dennis chooses to ignore the  _ shit _ part and focus on the alcohol. “It’s not our fault there’s a liquor store so close to here.”

“Yeah, like, what were they expecting from us?” Mac asks, taking a seat on the bench and swinging his feet up onto Dennis’s thighs.

“You were just in a public restroom, dude, get—”

“I didn’t step in anything!” Mac replies. “I’ll just, like, not put the soles on your legs.”

“Jesus Christ, fine,” Dennis says. It’s better than nothing, and anyways, the pressure is kind of nice. They sit in silence, Dennis stealing glances at Mac’s upturned face. The stars are reflected in Mac’s eyes, and if Dennis was one of those weirdly homoerotic poets, he’d describe it as breathtaking. He’s not, though. Either way, the point still stands.


	14. Dennis's Big Something, Pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dennis is a little bitch who tries not to be such a little bitch

When they get back to the apartment, all Dennis can hear is Dee’s mocking voice, saying  _ “I thought you said this was gonna be  _ big!” over and over and over again, drowning out Mac’s snores. At three in the morning, Dennis swings his legs off the bed and heads out to the fire escape, the cold Philly air waking him up faster than coffee would. He pulls out his phone and calls his sister. It goes straight to voicemail again.

“Dee, if you don’t call me back in the next five minutes, I’m going to call the Waitress again and wake you both up.”

Two minutes later, his phone rings. “Dennis, I’m going to kill you,” Dee hisses, her voice scratchy with sleep.

“I need you to find me a barbershop quartet, or whatever they’re called,” Dennis tells her.

“And you couldn’t have called Charlie for this? He and Frank are probably playing Nightcrawlers at this very moment, and you wouldn’t have had to wake me up!”

“Are you going to help me or not?”

“No!”

The line goes dead, and Dennis stares at his phone, shocked.  _ Goddamnit. _ So he’s doing this alone, then.

The wind kicks up, slicing through his thin T-shirt like it’s made of tissue paper. He shivers, scrolling through his contact list, trying to find someone,  _ anyone, _ who would know where to find a barbershop quartet at three AM.

“Artemis?”

“What the fuck do you want?” Artemis hollers, some kind of techno music blasting in the background. “I’m busy!”

“I need a barbershop quartet!”

“A Barbie chop dog head? The fuck?”

“BARBERSHOP QUARTET!”

“Huh? Barb and lop wire fence?”

“Jesus Christ!  _ BARBERSHOP QUARTET!” _

“Oh! Why didn’t you just say so?”

Dennis clenches his fist and takes a breath. “I  _ did!” _

The music stops abruptly. “What?”

“Why the hell didn’t you do that— you know what? Just— I need them in Paddy’s tomorrow at six—”

“You’re not open at six.”

“Six  _ PM, _ Jesus!”

“Yeah, that makes more sense.”

He strangles the empty air in front of him, imagining that it’s Artemis’s neck. Or Dee’s— she  _ is _ the one who put him in this situation, after all. “Six PM. And they need to know the song  _ Wind Beneath My Wings.” _

“The porno version or the Bette Midler version?”

_ “What do you think?” _ Dennis hisses. “You know— that’s bound to lead to a misunderstanding, because you are a strange, strange person! I want the Bette Midler version! What the hell even is the porno version?”

“It’s where—”

“You know what? I don’t want to know! I don’t fucking— just have them there! Please! Christ on a bike!” He hangs up before she can say anything else, and he spends a solid five minutes cursing Dee out before going back inside.

The warm air is a blessing, and he suddenly finds himself wide awake. He walks over to Mac’s open door— when he’s not snoring, Mac actually looks peaceful as he sleeps. His face is smoothed out, most of the lines gone, his downturned mouth hanging slightly open. His lashes fan out across his cheeks, the sparse moonlight casting dramatic shadows across his skin. His hair falls across his forehead, a wild mess that Dennis has the urge to run his hands through, just to see what it feels like.

“Den?” Mac mutters blearily. “Whassa time?”

“It’s three,” Dennis says, suddenly overcome with a wave of fondness. The memory of the emotion is vague and unfamiliar, and he wants to hold onto it for as long as he possibly can, before the sun comes up and burns it all away and they go back to their well-worn routine of yelling. “Go back to sleep.”

Mac gestures for Dennis to come closer, and the second he walks within Mac’s reach, a hand shoots up and grabs Dennis’s wrist, and then Dennis finds himself being pulled onto the bed, lying directly on top of Mac. His heart jumps. “Y’re not gonna leave again?”

Around the lump in his throat, he manages to say, “No. Nope. I’m staying.”

“Good,” Mac mutters, and then he’s asleep again, his snores reverberating through Dennis’s chest. Mac is sprawled across the bed, limbs everywhere, and there’s nowhere for Dennis to go. And this would be a conversation they’d be able to brush off, laugh away, never bring up again, except Dennis is laying on Mac’s chest and there’s no taking that back.

They’ve been past the point of no return for a while, actually, and it should scare the shit out of him, but for some unknown reason it doesn’t. He’s kind of glad, actually. Maybe he’s sick of putting up a shell, the same way that Mac is sick of fighting and Dee is sick of looking for handouts. It’s all coming twenty years too late, but late is better than never. And he got here eventually, and now he gets to lie on top of a warm, solid, sleeping Mac and listen to his heartbeat.

Sleep takes him gradually, and when he dreams, it isn’t of the room on the cruise ship or the night they dug up his mother or the library with Ms. Klinsky. He dreams of movie night, with bottles of shitty beer and pieces of microwave popcorn scattered everywhere, and then he dreams of nothing at all.


	15. Dennis's Big Something, Pt. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the big something actually comes into play

Charlie bursts into the back office just as Dennis finally manages to apply his mascara without clumping it up— he really should buy new makeup to keep at the bar— and when he jumps, the wand pokes into his eye. “Why the hell are there four strippers here?” Charlie asks, completely unaffected by Dennis’s barrage of swears.

_ “Strippers?” _ Dennis cries, mascara temporarily forgotten. “Are you sure?”

“Well, their pants are really low-rise tearaways and they’re wearing thongs, so…”

“No, no, no!” Dennis whines. “Oh, fuck you, Artemis!” He whirls around to face Charlie, not caring that his watery eye is probably smearing his makeup. “How the hell do you know they’re tearaways?”

“I wear ‘em a lot,” Charlie says, completely casually. “They’re good for, like, when you’re going through the sewers as a shortcut and you don’t strip, so, like, if you see a wall of sewage comin’ at you, you rip ‘em off and your clothes don’t get dirty.”

“But then the pants are ruined,” Dennis says. “Your pants would be torn apart.”

“Yeah, but they don’t get dirty.”

“What the hell are you— okay, you know what? There are more pressing issues at hand. Uh, go tell them not to strip, because I don’t want the fucking barbershop quartet to be  _ half-fucking-naked _ while I’m giving my speech—”

“Got it,” Charlie replies, already halfway out the door.

“I feel like— I feel like you don’t get it, though,” Dennis calls. “Oh, goddamnit.”

He can’t deal with  _ that _ problem, either, because his phone lights up with a text from Dee, telling him that they’re outside. “Shit,” Dennis says. He wipes a hand under his eye, getting most of the black smudge off, and he runs the wand through his lashes again. “Shit.” He checks his hair. “Shit, shit, shit. Fuck.”

He takes a breath, and he walks out of the office.

The strippers aren’t even wearing shirts. Dee is holding hands with the Waitress. Charlie’s gaze is locked in on their clasped hands, and he looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm. Mac looks like he can’t decide whether to be pissed— for what reason, only God knows— or enthralled by the tight muscles of the glistening men.

It hasn’t even started, and it’s already a clusterfuck.  _ Could it really happen any other way? _

Mac spots Dennis, and his expression shifts. “Oh, you asshole! I had to get a ride with  _ Dee!” _

“I’m standing right here,” Dee snaps.

“Uh, what’s going on with— with—” Charlie gestures to the Waitress and Dee— “like,  _ what?” _

“We’re  _ dating, _ Charlie,” Dee says, not unkindly.

“Oh. And— how long—”

“Hey!” Dennis hisses. “Can you guys do this later? I’m trying to—”

Charlie rears his head, chest puffing up. “Well, I just want to know—”

“Why are there strippers here?” Mac asks.

“Yeah, strippers! I have the strippers! I have priority!” Dennis snaps. “Mac—”

“How the hell do you two start dating and— Dee, you didn’t let me  _ know?” _

“Charlie, I was never gonna date you!”

“Yeah, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but we’re— well, we’re  _ happy!” _

“I’m still confused about the strippers,” Mac says.

“But you could’ve  _ told _ me!” Charlie cries.

“Charlie, that broad was never gonna bang you,” Frank advises. “Cut yer losses!”

“Oh my  _ God, _ you’re a troll,” the Waitress says.

“Look— Frank, it’s not a question of—”

“Holy shit, can you guys shut up for two goddamn seconds?!” Dennis yells. They all turn to face him, eyes wide and mouths clamped shut, and Dennis wonders how the hell  _ this _ part, the simplest part, could go off the rails so easily. “I’m trying to fucking  _ bare _ my  _ soul— _ I even have a barbershop quartet!” He gestures at the strippers, and they wave. “So will you  _ assholes _ just  _ please _ let me get through this?”

“Fine.”

“Yeah.”

“Go ahead.”

He inhales deeply.  _ “Thank _ you.”

“So  _ you _ hired the strippers?”

“Oh my God, Mac, just— look. Okay. I meant everything I said at our fake gay wedding, all right? Everything. And I dunno what to say that I haven’t already said, so I’m gonna repeat some shit. I love you. A lot. And I regret a lot of shit I’ve done to you in the past, but I’ve never regretted anything I’ve done  _ with _ you, y’know? I don’t think I could put up with living with anyone else other than you, I  _ definitely _ could never spend as much time with someone else as I do with you, and I don’t think I could ever love someone as much as I love you. And, y’know, it’s kinda terrifying, because— I mean, whatever shit I  _ feel, _ it’s few and far-between, but what I feel for— for you, it’s constant, and it’s constantly growing, and it’s like you, because it’s one of the only things I can count on to always be there. So, uh. Thank you. For giving me that.”

He snaps his fingers, his cheeks still burning, and the strippers start to harmonize perfectly.  _ “Did you ever know, that you’re my hero? ‘Cause you’re the wind beneath my wings.” _

He swallows. “So do you— do you want to stay gay married?”

Mac bites his lip, his puppy-dog eyes even more upturned. And then he starts to laugh.

Dennis’s stomach drops down to the soles of his feet. The strippers stop harmonizing. The only sound left in the bar is Mac’s cackling. “Oh, you asshole!” he cries, laughter racking his body. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s just— I was gonna take you to the park again today, and— oh, God, I was gonna do the same exact thing!” he exclaims.

“What?” Dennis asks. Time has slowed infinitely, and he can hear his every heartbeat, and all he can see is Mac. “So you—”

“Dude, I did a whole confession thing yesterday in the vents! I mean, granted, it was kinda wrapped up in other shit—”

“You’re telling  _ me.” _

“—but, I mean, obviously I want to stay gay married.”

Dennis wasn’t prepared for this. He’d  _ hoped, _ of course, but actual confirmation? It’s strange, and unfamiliar, and it’s better than anything he’d ever dreamed of. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Mac says.

“Kiss him,” a drunk in the corner calls.

“Jesus— yeah, okay,” Dennis says, and then Mac’s stepping towards him, and Mac’s lips are on his, and _ God, _ how could he have gone twenty-five years without doing this? Mac’s lips are a little chapped, and he’s so  _ warm, _ and as his tongue slides across Dennis’s bottom lip, Dennis reaches up and cups Mac’s face. The last time they did this, Mac didn’t have nearly as much stubble, and it prickles against Dennis’s hands. He sweeps his thumbs over Mac’s high cheekbones and feels Mac smile against his mouth. It’s somehow familiar and vastly foreign all at once, and Dennis wants to map every inch of Mac’s body, note the location of every contour, every freckle. He smiles back, and he feels Mac’s grin grow even wider.

“Five second is long enough, guys,” Dee says.

_ Fuck you, _ Dennis wants to say, but as he pulls back and catches sight of Mac’s dazed grin, the words die in his throat.  _ I did that, _ Dennis marvels.  _ I put that there. _ The power that he feels is headier than anything he’s felt before, and he runs his thumb across Mac’s cheekbone once more. “That was pretty great, huh?” Mac says.

“Yeah,” Dennis says, voice a little scratchy. “Yeah.”

“Okay, now can we talk about Dee and—”

“Jesus  _ Christ, _ Charlie—“

The argument fades into the background like so many have before, except this time it’s because Mac is looking at him with an expression of unbridled adoration— and it isn’t as terrible to identify the emotion as Dennis thought it would be. “Y’know, I did go to all the trouble of setting up the stuff at Fairmount,” Mac says.

“Yeah, it looks like they might be going at it for a while anyways.”

Mac grins wide, lopsided and unrestrained, and Dennis’s smile grows to match. “After you.”


	16. Proposal No. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> another day in the park!

Mac finishes his speech with, “I love you, and it’s taken a while for me to accept that, but you make everything worth it,” and then his band starts playing an instrumental version of  _ Never Gonna Give You Up, _ and Dennis has never felt so many emotions in such little time. “Will you stay gay married to me?”

“I mean, we already covered this back at the bar, but  _ yes,” _ Dennis says. And then he gets to kiss Mac  _ again,  _ and this time there’s no Dee to interrupt (although making out in public is kinda gauche, so Dennis pulls back after a respectable amount of time). The heady feeling still hasn’t gone away, and he knows it will eventually, and it’s slightly terrifying to think about what he’d do to hold on to it.

Maybe they should just quit the bar and use Frank’s card to buy a new apartment so they can do nothing but screw all day. Then again, moving to the suburbs had ended with a dead dog and a near psychotic break for both of them, so maybe not.

They buy ice cream and weed from a cart that sells both, and they sit on the same bench that they sat on last night, a calm silence enveloping them. Dennis is seriously considering leaning over and wiping a bit of melted ice cream from the corner of Mac’s lips, and then Mac has to go and ask, “What happened in North Dakota?”

“What?” Dennis says, his mouth slightly cottony. “What— why—”

Mac carries on, as if he hasn’t heard Dennis at all. “Y’know, if we’re doing this— this whole  _ gay _ thing, you can’t just treat me like shit. You can’t treat  _ any _ of us like shit, dude.”

And then Mac is sniffling, and— “Oh, Jesus, Mac, are you  _ crying?” _

“Bro, you  _ know _ weed makes me cry!”

Dennis does know that, but it’s still unsettling to watch actual tears run down Mac’s face. Mac  _ never _ cries— he’ll sniffle and his voice will break, but he won’t  _ cry. _ Unless he’s smoking weed. “Mac— c’mon, dude, don’t—”

Mac swipes his hand under his eyes, and when he says, “I’m serious, dude, what went down? Like, when you came back, you were a  _ dick,” _ he’s obviously trying to regulate his voice, but he just sounds kind of like Mickey Mouse, and Dennis bursts out into laughter. “Don’t  _ laugh _ at me, dude, it’s the weed! It’s the weed!”

“I know it’s the weed! It’s the weed for me, too! Jesus, what did this guy put in it?” Dennis exclaims, still convulsing with laughter. “It’s just—you sound like goddamn Mickey Mouse—”

“Oh my God, I  _ absolutely _ do,” Mac sobs. “I sound like fucking Mickey Mouse!”

And that sets Dennis off again, and then Mac is threatening him in his teary voice, and somehow Dennis manages to end up with his head on Mac’s lap as they try to breathe deep breaths and calm down. “God, I’m so glad we’re white, dude,” Mac says, his voice somewhat less Mickey-Mouse-esque. “We’ve been screaming our heads off about weed, and nobody’s arrested us or anything.”

“Shit, yeah, we probably should’ve smoked it in the apartment.”

“We’ve still got some left,” Mac says, holding up the baggie. “We should go home and smoke it.”

“We should.” Dennis makes no move to get up, because Mac is warm and his thighs are like pillows. Very hard, very tough pillows, but the warmth kind of makes up for it. He figures that, in exchange for Mac’s thigh pillow service, he owes him an explanation. “Uh. About North Dakota—”

“Don’t tell me if it’s gonna be, like, shitty,” Mac says. He’s always taken a while longer to come down from his high, and it’s evident in the spaced-out quality of his voice.

“It’s not shitty. It’s kinda shitty, but not really.”

“Okay, then tell me.”

Dennis inhales, and he purposely avoids looking at Mac’s face. The sunset is almost as pretty, anyways. “I mean, it was just— I was so terrified of turning out like Frank, and it was driving me crazy.”

“I’m sure you were a good dad,” Mac reassures him.

“I mean, I wasn’t as bad as Frank. Or my—” the word  _ mom _ sticks in his throat, but Mac nods.

“I know.”

“Yeah. Uh, but I couldn’t really get it out of my head— and then when I came back, all I could think was that I left them. And if I couldn’t be a good parent— I’d left you guys once, and you all were  _ fine _ without me. So I got pissed, y’know?”

Mac snorts. “You don’t know jack shit.”

“Well, Cindy—”

“Cindy didn’t compare to you, okay? She wasn’t as bad as the rest of us, and even if she was, I’d still pick you. And it’s not even a racism thing.”

“Guess we’re all just shit people, huh?” he says, and Mac doesn’t have any reassurances for that. They’re all bad people, and maybe they could’ve escaped that twenty years ago, but they’ve just kept spiraling, and now they’re stuck, stuck in the bed they’ve made for themselves, stuck with each other.

“What changed?” Mac asks.

“Not to be gay—”

“You literally just said we were gonna stay gay married, like, an hour ago.”

“Let me  _ finish, _ Mac.” Dennis glares up at him. “I mean, Frank managed to get a tape of your dance, I dunno how, and that was kinda— that kinda did it for me. I dunno why. I just kinda— like, thought? About everything that had happened? And I was being a dick, and I was— y’know, I was acting kinda like you when you were all repressed and shit.”

Mac snickers. “Yeah, you kinda got more repressed as I got less. Holy shit, maybe I gave my repression to you!”

Dennis reaches up and smacks Mac’s side lightly. “You absolutely did not.”

“How do you know?”

“You’re a real asshole, you know that?”

“Because I gave you my repression or because I’m interrupting you?”

“What the hell do you think?”

“I honestly have no clue, dude.”

“Oh my— okay, do you want to go back to the apartment and get high or not?”

“Dude, I asked  _ you  _ that, and you’re still lying on me.”

“It’s not my fault you’re comfortable! If anything, this is your fault.”

Mac stands abruptly, almost throwing Dennis off the bench. “How’s that for taking charge of the situation?”

“You’re a douche. And I never said anything about taking charge of the situation, so…”

Mac reaches down and extends a hand. Dennis takes it, and Mac pulls him up with such force that Dennis goes flying into Mac’s chest.”Am I still a douche now,  _ Dennis?” _

“Kinda, yeah,” Dennis says, but he can feel Mac’s body heat radiating into his chest and Mac’s huge arms wrapped his back, so maybe not. “Let’s go.”

They stand like that for another five minutes, swaying slightly in the breeze, before Mac’s stomach growls and they break apart. “God, I kinda forgot you get the munchies,” Dennis says.

“Can we stop at the Wawa on the way back?”

“Fine, but if you leave your goddamn chip bags all over the apartment—”

“I do not leave them  _ all over—” _

“Oh, yes you do.”

“I leave them on the couch! And that’s it!”

“And it’s disgusting!”

“Well, if you have a problem with it, you can throw them away!”

“I shouldn’t have to! It’s, like, twenty feet from the couch to a trash can!”

“Goddamn! Fine, I’ll toss them in a plastic bag or something and  _ then _ you can throw them out, if it bothers you that much!”

“Jesus fucking— fine. Fine. Christ on a  _ bike. _ But you have to keep the bag under the coffee table.”

“Fine.”

They glare at each other for a few more seconds, until Mac’s expression shifts— he’s always the first to break, what with his truly abysmal attention span— into a hopeful one. “Oh! Maybe the Redbox will have Mean Girls again!”

“Yeah, maybe,” Dennis says sullenly.

“C’mon, Den,” Mac says, smile so infectious that the fucking CDC should be called in. Dennis resolves not to smile back for at least five minutes. “I know you love it.”

“Fine! Fine, I want to watch goddamn Mean Girls with you again. Happy?”

“I am, actually, because I  _ also _ want to watch ‘goddamn Mean Girls’ with you.”

“Idiot.”


	17. Mac and Dennis Bang It Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they watch mean girls and Do The Deed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no graphic depictions of sex in this

Mean Girls is their watch-while-high movie, so Mac, of course, cries every time, both when the girls do the trust falls and when Cady makes her speech. It’s a certainty of life, the same way Dee is his sister and Frank is the bastard who raised him. What’s  _ new _ is the fact that he has to reach across his body in a truly uncomfortable way in order to get to the popcorn, because the hand that would usually be used to grab it has taken up permanent residence entwined in Mac’s fingers. It’s not unpleasant, but now that the high of big gay feelings are gone and only the weed high remains, he’s starting to get kind of paranoid, and before he can stop himself, he asks, “Are you mad at me?”

Mac sniffles and swipes a hand across his eyes. “What?”

“Are you mad at me?”

“Wh— no? Why are—  _ oh, _ I forgot that weed makes you all paranoid sometimes!” Mac snickers, which is kind of rich.

“Says the guy who cried for the millionth time at the shittiest teen movie ever.”

“You take that back!”

“I  _ knew _ you were mad at me!”

“Well,  _ now _ I am!”

“Are you sure it’s not some, like, underlying thing, though?” Because Dennis would deserve it, at least a little, but—

Mac closes the gap between them in an instant, his salty lips still drawn into a scowl. One of his hands comes up and threads through Dennis’s hair—  _ God, _ it’s the hand Mac was using to eat popcorn and now Dennis’s hair is gonna be all greasy and— oh,  _ shit, _ he didn’t know Mac was this good at kissing. He’s always thought of Mac as a little naive, relationship-wise, but as Mac manages to move the popcorn, deepen the kiss, and get Dennis lying down underneath him, all within the span of three seconds, Dennis can’t do anything but admit to being wrong. “They say surprise is good in a relationship,” Dennis mumbles into Mac’s mouth, the weed and Mac’s tongue making him somewhat incoherent.

Mac pulls back and his lips quirk up into a half-smile. “Surprise, bitch.”

That sends blood rushing straight south—  _ gay  _ south?— and Dennis pulls Mac back down again. Mac’s got enough gel in his hair that a little popcorn grease doesn’t matter, and with the way that he’s pulling on Dennis’s hair, Dennis can’t really object to all the butter and salt anyways. Mac shifts, so that he’s mouthing along Dennis’s jawline instead, and when he bites at the bolt, Dennis can’t do anything to suppress his moan, arching up so that his body is flush against Mac’s.  _ God, _ that feels incredible. Why the hell haven’t they been doing this for the past twenty-five years, goddamnit?

Mac pulls back again— something that he’s doing entirely too much of, in Dennis’s opinion— and raises his eyebrows. Dennis’s gaze gets stuck on Mac’s spit-slick lips. “Is this okay?” Mac asks, the concern in his voice making Dennis squirm.

“Mac, if you don’t fucking fuck me right goddamn now—”

“Okay! Jesus, I get it!” And Dennis thinks about arguing the point, but the thought is fleeting and only stays in his head for the half-second between Mac shutting up and Mac starting to bite at Dennis’s neck, and then all the thoughts that Dennis can form are variations of  _ Jesus Christ, Mac _ and  _ give me more. _

Teenage him was a goddamn  _ idiot _ for not doing this sooner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!


	18. Sex Dolls: Terrorizing the Streets of Philadelphia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter involves dennis being a gay bitch and a ronald mcdonald (the yellow and red clown, not the flesh-colored one) sex doll.

Dennis wakes up with Mac sprawled over him, weighing half his body down. He turns his head to look at the bedside clock— already noon, Jesus Christ— and then his gaze drops to the folded sheet of paper that bears his name, written in Mac’s wide, scrawled handwriting. Dennis manages to extricate an arm and snatch up the paper before his stomach has the time to complete its usual convulsions, always expected when something out of his control happens. He manages to unfold it with just one hand.  _ “Colorado Itinerary?” _ he mutters to himself.

And then it hits him, scraps of a conversation about skiing and seaweed wraps and massages drifting back to him, and his heart twists. “Mac!” Dennis exclaims. “Mac, wake up, you—”

“Huh? Whuzzat?” Mac says, bolting upright with both fists up. He blinks as Dennis waves the paper in his face. “Oh. Guess you found it.”

_ “Yes, _ I found it, do you mind telling me what the hell  _ it _ is?” Dennis asks, panic creeping up on him.

“It’s an itinerary. For Colorado.”

“I  _ see _ that, but— what— why—”

“Well, we said that if we really  _ were _ gay for each other, we’d go to Colorado for our honeymoon, and since we  _ are _ gay for each other… Dude, you okay?” Mac asks, reaching out to lay his hand on Dennis’s shoulder.

Dennis nods, and he swallows the lump in his throat and wishes for some whiskey to wash it down with, and then he nods again. “I’m— I’m good, uh… when— when did you have the time to put this together?”

“Oh, I couldn’t sleep last night, so…”

Dennis screws his eyes shut for a second before opening them again. “Mac— you really are a fucking sap, you know that?”

Mac shrugs and half-grins with that same self-conscious energy he had on Valentine’s Day, and Dennis is struck with the sudden realization that this time, he  _ can _ kiss Mac stupid. So he does, and when he pulls back, Mac’s grin has become a proper one. “I— you know I love you, right?” Dennis asks, suddenly seized with the need for Mac to  _ realize, _ realize how big and deep and terrifying Dennis’s feelings regarding Mac are. “And all that?”

“Yeah, I do. Me too, man.”

“Yeah.” His throat is burning like he’s just done a shot, even though he’s as sober as it’s possible for him to get without going through withdrawal. He really wants to kiss Mac again, except he’s kind of scared that he’ll burst into tears or something, and that would be kind of awkward, even though Mac’s seen the worst parts of him and would undoubtedly be unfazed. Maybe he should kiss Mac anyways and find out.

Instead of kissing Dennis or letting Dennis kiss him, Mac swings his bare legs out of bed and gets up to rifle through Dennis’s shelves, lifting up books and moving figurines and generally being a bitch. “What the hell are you doing?” Dennis asks.

“I’m looking for the  _ weed, _ dude, when was the last time we smoked in bed?”

It’s been  _ years _ since they’ve done it, and it suddenly strikes him how much he misses doing that shit with Mac, misses the times when their traditions hadn’t been eroded by hangups. “Closet,” Dennis says, pulling the blanket around himself tighter as Mac opens the door, and then— “Holy  _ Christ!” _ he cries. Mac shrieks and jumps back (since he’s a big baby) as the life-sized, yellow-and-red figure previously hidden in the closet comes crashing to the floor.

Mac looks up at the ceiling and then squeezes his eyes shut. “What the shit— is that—”

“Goddamn  _ Dee!” _ Dennis exclaims, slamming his fist against the mattress, his heart still pounding a relentless tattoo against his chest.  _ “Who _ the  _ fuck _ hides a  _ Ronald McDonald _ sex doll— actually,  _ where _ the fuck did she even  _ get _ that?”

Mac shifts uncomfortably, his eyes still closed. “She asked where I got the one of you, and I told her.”

“Jesus  _ Christ, _ Mac.”

“I didn’t think she’d do  _ that!” _

“Yeah, well, are we forgetting the thing with the stripper? She’s a goddamn bitch.”

“Ugh. God, Dennis, why’d you have to bring that up?”

“Just— could you just get the weed? And come back to bed?”

“Well, now you’ve got me thinking about—”

“Oh my  _ God.” _

“Y’know, the least you could do is say  _ please,” _ Mac huffs. He  _ still _ hasn’t opened his eyes. Goddamn Mac. Goddamn Dee. Goddamn  _ everyone. _

_ “Please, _ could you get the weed and come back to bed, my  _ husband—” _ and isn’t  _ that _ thrilling to say, no matter how much Dennis wishes he could stay pissy right now— “the light of my life, the person I want to stay gay married to forever—”

“Ha! That’s—”

“Mac, if you say that that’s  _ gay—” _

“I’m right, though!”

“It’s, like, the lowest form— just get the weed! Please!”

Mac shifts again. “It’s in his hand.”

“Whose—  _ oh.” _ Fucking  _ clown sex doll, _ really? Is this really happening to him?

“Yeah.”

“Goddamn Dee.”

“Yeah.”

“Could you— could you come back to bed anyways? Please?” Dennis asks, and it’s meant to be sarcastic and snippy and anything other than vulnerable, but it makes Mac smile a little, so maybe it’s fine. Mac opens his eyes and walks back to bed, still staring at the ceiling, and buries himself under the covers, his cold hands wrapped around Dennis’s, practically burning imprints into his skin. Dennis stares openly at Mac, because now he  _ can _ stare openly at Mac— his best friend, his partner, his weed dealer, his most hated comrade, his fucking  _ gay husband— _ and marvels at how intertwined they are, and how he would never give any of it up. “Your fingers are like  _ ice, _ Mac, Jesus.”

Mac grins at him and makes no move to remove his hands. “Get used to it, bitch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you guys so much for reading! this is the longest thing i've written in a while and it was amazingly fun to do so. in conclusion, be gay do crimes.

**Author's Note:**

> tysm for reading! my tumblr and discord are also acanoftrash and my sunny blog is glundergun so feel free to hmu! kudos/comments/criticism always appreciated :))


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